Track Cycling Pedals

Choosing Pedals for Track Cycling is often a difficult task. Unlike other forms of cycling, the fixed gear nature of Track Cycling means that your feet have to be 110% secure in the pedals as if you accidently pull out you will almost certainly crash. As a consequence choosing the correct Pedal, Cleat and Strap selection for your type of Track Cycling is incredibly important.



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Specialist Sprint Cyclists

I.e Those competing in the Sprint, Team Sprint, Keirin, 500m Time Trial and Kilometre Time Trial


If you are competing in Sprint events you need pedals with toe straps as the power that you are generating will almost certainly result in you unclipping regardless of how high you tension your pedals to your cleats.

A huge issue for professional Track Cyclists used to be the lack of an off the shelf solution to use the market leading Look Keo Cleats with Toe Straps, however we offer a number of off the shelf solutions for Look Keo Cleat compatible Track Pedals with Straps - 

Another important area to consider is your Track Cycling Shoes, are they are snug fit? I.e. can you wiggle your toes and move your foot around inside your shoes? Or do they function correctly and secure enclose your feet as is they are part of your body? If your are experiencing these issues you are loosing power as not all of effort that you are transferring to your bike is propelling you forward. Some of that effort is lost in the foot movement within your shoes.

This problem can be solved with specialist Track Cycling Shoes that provide a tight, secure fit however in addition to better shoes using toe straps will rachet up the contact between foot and pedal to ensure you have a safe, secure and powerful connection to your bike.

You should feel at one with the bike when pedalling, as if the locking join between pedal and shoe is a physical, permanent connection between your body and the bike. 

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General Track Cyclists

I.e Those competing in Track Leagues, SQTs, Points Races, Scratch Race, Madison etc

This category of Track Cyclist generally has a lower power output than dedicated Track Sprinters so as long as you crank the tension up high on your pedals you should not have a problem pulling out, however it is worth bearing in mind that even the best Track Cyclists in this category sometime pull out -

So it may be worth using Toe Straps as not everybody has the handling skills of Mark Cavendish that would enable them to cope with such a situation.

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Track Time Triallists

I.e Those competing in the Pursuit


It is very surprising that very few Pursuiters use Toe Straps despite the important of the start to their ride. You cannot risk pulling out a foot during your start as you cannot guarantee that you will receive a restart or even avoid crashing. Our advice is to be safe and use Toe Straps as you would not want all that training to go to waste.


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Toe Straps

There are two types of Toe Straps,

Strap/Buckle Type in Single, Double, Leather or Nylon format - 




Or Velcro Nylon Toe Straps such as 

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Other Pedal Types

There are of course other options such as traditional Platform Pedals with Toe Clips/Straps, these are still used on the track by a minority of riders however still work perfectly well if you have the correct shoe/cleat setup for this kind of pedal. 

The only pedal type that we would not recommend using on the track is SPD MTB pedals like the below as they cannot be tensioned tight enough and cannot be used with straps

Correct Cleat Alignment