HT Components PA01A Flat Pedal

As an OE part on many mountain models from a local bike brand, me and my riding peers have plenty of miles racked up on both these and HTs lower-tier siblings (PA12A, PA12). Cheapest has a convex body with plastic pins, middle of the range adds metal pins everywhere except on the innermost position and top of the line has metal pins only, two traction pads on the centreline, plus an undercut in the centre of the plastic body to gain some concavity. Internals remain the same.

Review

I pretty much learned how to ride on these pedals, and only recently after 8 or so years, I started to be really conscious of their limits. The market seems to only now realise plastic pedals, while not as bling off the store shelf can be as good, if not better than their aluminum counterparts. Lighter, better looking when smashed, cheaper, and if they have the right shape as this one equally good in performance. Well HT knew this for a while, and luckily me too.

Riding trail and enduro bikes, used with shoes like 5.10 Freerider, 5.10 Sptifire, Specialized 2FO 1.0, and for a quite some time Vans Atwood, I rarely lacked grip. But you can probably guess by my footwear choice that all-out grip and locked in feeling is not what I am after. I would sum it up by saying that repositioning my feet on PA01A doesn’t take a second thought, but making it through really choppy rock gardens with a foot still in the same place definitely did take conscious thinking. So the mention limits come mostly from their size, especially front to back length, which can make softer shoes wrap around the pedal to an uncomfortable extend and affect blood circulation. This could be felt under sustained heavy pedaling or sustained heavy descending. (foot size men US - 11, EU - 44,5)

Long term, I only manage to brake body of their cheaper sibling the PA12A, but I've also seen local riders huck FMB bronze event on these without and issue. After my incident, I still trusted the PA01A with a season in the rocky southwest of US. Single bushing and 2 ball bearings are easy and cheap to rebuild without special tools, but for a price, I forgave myself for just letting them struggle under my feed for years with occasional re-lube. And they still work...

Conclusion

For a beginner or a person with smaller feet, this is all the pedal you will likely need. Only other downside that dated platform dimensions is rather primitive seal, so if you ride in particularly dusty or wet environments, you might look elsewhere.