OneUp Components Wave Flat Pedal

Ever since they started making pedals, OneUp has done things a little differently. Never afraid to follow their own path, the shape of their first aluminum pedal bucked some of the most prominent design trends in favor of a flatter and thinner profile. Now, they’re back at it again – their new Wave pedal is an attempt at combining the characteristics of both concave and convex surfaces into one shape, said to offer the best of both worlds. We were curious to see how this idea would pan out in real life, so here is our report after a few months of riding it.

OneUp Wave Pedal Highlights

• Body: Forged and CNC’d 6061 Aluminum Body
• Thickness: Axle 14.2mm / Edges 11.5mm
• Size: 107mm x 110mm (W x L)
• Axle: Chromoly Steel with Black ED coating
• Bearing configuration: inboard Igus bushing and 3x outboard cartridge bearings
• Pins: 10x M4 Hollow Pin per side (self-cleaning hex through hole)
• Colors: Black, Red, Dark Green, Dark Blue, Orange, Purple, Grey, Bronze
• Weight: 355g (per pair, verified)
• MSRP: $159.99 USD

Initial Impressions

The main idea behind the Wave pedal was to use both a concave and a convex profile, in an attempt to provide the grip associated with concave shapes as well as room to “aggressively drop your heels.” The result is a shape that is concave in the forward section while flowing into a convex shape towards the rear of the pedal.

Diving deeper into the dimensions, the Wave pedal is quite thin, with a platform that is slightly on the smaller side of things in today’s flat pedal world. The sides are pulled in and the leading edges are chamfered, to help the pedal slide over trailside obstacles if at some point you should run out of room to avoid them altogether. There are 10 pins, 9 of which are placed around the outer edges with 1 pin sitting more towards the middle of the pedal. The axle is made of chromoly steel and spins on an inboard Igus bushing and 3 outboard bearings per side.

Comparing the Wave pedal to others in our big flat pedal “Face Off” article, the relatively modest concavity and “pin-to-axle” measurements hold the score back a bit (just like with OneUp’s other flat pedal), but numbers don’t always tell the full story. Despite being thicker over the axle than towards the edges, the pins make up for the lack of concavity in the body itself and do provide an acceptable amount of effective concavity (5mm by our measurement). Would this be enough to convince us in action?

On The Trail

We were certainly a bit skeptical when looking over the Wave pedal for the first time. We’ve not had good experiences with any type of convex pedals in the past, and the side profile of the Wave does make it look somewhat underwhelming for anybody who is used to seeing a visible amount of concavity on their pedals. However, it turns out that our worries were largely unfounded as the Wave pedal provides a lot more grip than we were expecting.

The effective concavity that results from the pin height and placement is in fact enough to allow your foot to sink into the pedal a bit to generate that solid and confidence-inspiring feeling of being locked in “between the pins.” The wave shape does mean that you don’t immediately feel the pins towards the back of the pedal, but the front pins do manage to “cup” your foot regardless. When you apply more pressure, you’ll find the rearward pins as well, although we wouldn’t go so far as to say that we can feel any kind of “transition” between heels flat or dropped as the marketing material might imply. It’s more of a subtle thing, where you can pivot your foot slightly around the front section of the pedal by just removing a bit of foot pressure, and then lock back in again when things get rough.

In terms of size, the Wave pedal is somewhat on the conservative side. It doesn’t feel cramped, but it is compact. Combined with the low profile and chamfered edges, this makes it good at fitting into tight spots and sneaking by ill-intentioned obstacles instead of hanging up on them. It does also mean that if you like a really wide stance with plenty of room to place your feet any which way you want to, you might be better served by a bigger platform. All in all, the Wave shape does work out on the trail, providing plenty of grip when putting weight on the pedal, while allowing you to reposition your feet relatively easily when needed. Rest assured, we’re talking about fairly minor degrees of differences here when compared to other pedals, as the overall feeling produced by the Wave is still one of grip you can rely on. 

What’s The Bottom Line?

The Wave pedal is an attempt at designing a profile that provides different characteristics in different parts of the platform. By and large, this design objective has been met, and we found that it translates to a pedal that provides ample grip when descending with your heels down, while allowing you you reposition your feet when needed without having to come off the pedal completely. The thin and compact dimensions make it a good choice for those riding tight trails as well. All in all, an intriguing concept that delivers what amounts to a fairly classic flat pedal user experience.

For more information head on over to oneupcomponents.com.

About The Reviewer

Johan Hjord - Age: 52 // Years Riding MTB: 20 // Weight: 190-pounds (87 kg) // Height: 6'0" (1.84m)

Johan loves bikes, which strangely doesn’t make him any better at riding them. After many years spent practicing falling off cliffs with his snowboard, he took up mountain biking in 2005. Ever since, he’s mostly been riding bikes with too much suspension travel to cover up his many flaws as a rider. His 200-pound body weight coupled with unique skill for poor line choice and clumsy landings make him an expert on durability - if parts survive Johan, they’re pretty much okay for anybody. Johan rides flat pedals with a riding style that he describes as "none" (when in actuality he rips!). Having found most trail features to be not to his liking, Johan uses much of his spare time building his own. Johan’s other accomplishments include surviving this far and helping keep the Vital Media Machine’s stoke dial firmly on 11.

Photos by Johan Hjord and Nils Hjord