Race Face announced their 2014 Atlas pedal at the trade-shows last year and they’re available to purchase now. We recently got a hold of a set and you can learn more about them inside.

Race Face is well known for their roots in freeride mountain biking so it should come as no surprise to anyone that they’re now offering flat pedals. Born on the shore, Race Face pride’s themselves in their rich heritage and new product offerings. They’ve been producing a lot of products in-house whenever possible like their Carbon Next cranks.

The flat pedal market has evolved quite a bit and designs have become thinner, lighter, and gripper. Overall, the abundance of quality bike parts has increased across the industry and it’s a good time to be a biker to say the least. While your wallet might not agree with the cost, there’s no denying the quality of parts available today. Race Face has released a lot of impressive parts recently including their in-house carbon fiber Next cranks that we took a look at last month. The pedals were designed and tested in Canada, but the Affect and Atlas pedals are made in Taiwan. Regardless, the Atlas pedals you see here are certainly on many people’s wish-list this year.

Race Face has tuned up their packaging and overall visual appeal across many of their products. The Atlas pedal box is simple and clean and like many other Race Face products should stick out when perusing your local shop.

The Atlas pedals are available in Red (pictured), Blue, Green, or Black. MSRP on the pedals will set you back $179.99.  Race Face also released the Aeffect at 119.99 that comes in at a lower price point.

The Atlas pedal is machined from 6061 T6 aluminum and is thin to say the least. Platform wise there’s plenty of room to move around on and Race Face took their time with this pedal as they seemed to tick all of the boxes we like in a flat pedal.  Weight wise ours came in at 357.2g (you can see more verified weights in our weights section).

Grip is plentiful and they’ve got a concave design to them. In addition to that they’ve angled some of the steel traction pins in the body to help them dig in to your shoes even more.  You can adjust the pin height as well with the included washers (see gallery below for more pictures).  The pins are also hex shaped to aid in more grip.

Pedal strikes are often inevitable in the life of a flat pedal, especially in rocky terrain. Race Face’s 10 pedal pins are easily removed via the backside of the pedal with a 3mm allen wrench so even if you manage to booger up a steel traction pin, it shouldn’t be an issue to remove. The outside edges of the pedal also see some angled chamfering to allow impacts to deflect should you graze a rock. They’re not quite as machine-sculpted as the Straitline AMP or the Point 1 Podium 2, but functionally they’re there.

Race Face even thought about spare pin storage with this design and integrated a spare pin location at the end of the pedal body end-cap.  The black cap screws onto the end of the pedal body.

The cromoly spindle is straight forward to remove and rolls on 4 sealed cartridge bearings smoothly. Just remove the black end cap(6mm), hold the axle with an 8mm allen, and remove the 2.5mm allen.  Should you ever need to re grease the axle, it is quite easy to remove the spindle.

Axle bolt is visible after removing the black end-cap

Compared to some of the other high-end flat pedals out there the Race Face Atlas pedals are quite thin and certainly quite competitive in all aspects (lightweight, thin, grippy, and size).

Point 1 Podium, Race Face Atlas, Straitline Defacto, Twenty6 Predator, Spank Spike

The bump on the edge of the Race Face pedals that house the bearing is quite small and unobtrusive.  The bearing hump is nicely shaped to allow the shoe to transition onto the pedal easily.

Podium, Podium 2, Atlas, Spike

These pedals are ready to roll no matter what you might have in store for them. They’re capable in every genre from DH, FR, AM, DJ, XC, Enduro or whatever your fancy might be.  ‘Flat pedals for medals!’

Gallery

See more Race Face products at Raceface.com