For anyone looking to hack different pedal bodies onto the Assiomas, GPLama stated that XPEDO is owned by Wellgo. (See his Keo cleat compatibility with power meter pedals video on YouTube).
Knowing that, you might find a Wellgo flat pedal that works with the Assiomas.
@gpl this might make a good video for you to do if you can find Wellho flat pedals that work with the Assioma hack. That would be a first in the market solution for MTB riders that prefer flats or commuters that want every watt tracked.
The problem with the Assioma is the size of the battery/electronics pod. It’ll get in the way with a flat pedal if your foot is too far inwards. Their Look style road pedal works as the shoe is elevated above the cleat and clear of the pod. The SPD hack / shoe hack requirement isn’t ideal. More on this topic in… 5hrs…
Responding to GPLama and following up with my prior Wellgo M194 experience here.
I don’t recall clearance being too much of an issue on the M194s. However, what did become an issue is the drag on the pedals, and eventually one of the pedals developed a lot of lateral play. I called it quits after that. I picked up a set of Crank Brothers Mallet shoes and iSSi Trail III pedals with the hope that soft soles would make clipless riding in technical terrain close enough to flat pedal riding for my purposes. That was a disaster. Because the pedals sit so close to the pod, I had to shave off a chunk of the tread instep to clear the pod.
That was fine on tame riding, but when I got into technical trail where I had to use a lot more body English, it wasn’t nearly enough clearance anymore. The sole of the shoe stripped off a fair amount of plastic from the pod body in a matter of minutes. The pods look like hell now, but thankfully they still work and the charging ports are still functional. I’ll have to shave off a lot more tread before the next attempt with those.
The Mzyrh pedals mentioned by @wafflenator look like a good flat pedal alternative, but honestly it looks like shoe/pod clearance would be an issue there too, and I’m not going to take a Dremel tool to my FiveTens. I do still want a good flat pedal solution though. I use these on my eMTB and it’s good to be able to review my Strava data and see how much power I was actually putting in since the assist is definitely going to throw estimated power values off.
I’m assuming this is because of the Q-factor concern you mentioned in the Assioma SPD-SL compatible spindle video? FWIW and n=1 and all that, but I seem to fit your thought that maybe MTBers won’t mind it (I also don’t know if being female might have an impact on my feelings as well). I use mine on the trainer (on an old MTB) and on my normal MTB when I’m riding terrain where rock strikes are a lower concern, and I don’t notice a difference in terms of general comfort or wanting a different foot position, even over longer rides, between the Assioma hack pedals and my Shimano M520s, which I believe have a Q-factor of 55mm. I don’t know whether it matters, but I also didn’t have to do anything to my shoes to get them to clear the pod (I always assumed it was because I have smaller feet wearing 39s). I am pretty much exclusively (~95% of the time) a MTBer when I’m not indoors on the trainer. I’ve got decent hours on my hacked Assiomas at this point (~7 months) and haven’t had any discomfort issues with either of my two primary setups (trainer and outdoors), but maybe I’m just not particular about this (although I do have a history of various knee issues I dealt with in the past from when I used to run). My main MTB is fairly new, and I’ll be going to the fitter in a few weeks to get my fit fully dialed in on the new bike, so I’ll be sure to bring both sets of pedals and have this discussion during my fit since I do switch between the hacked Assiomas and the M520s on that bike depending on the terrain.
For those looking into Bontrager MTB Comp SPD, I can confirm the conversion detailed by @Michael_Snasdell works. HOWEVER, the quality of Bont has a serious problem with unclipping, where your cleats would somehow linger onto the tip of the pedals after unclipping. There is also the issue of squeaking noise after ~100km. Both issues were actually in the reviews, but at the time I decided to take the chance. I now have to revert the conversion sadly.
Couple weeks out from SBT GRVL. Always do big changes to your bike right before an A event… Smh…
Took the dive and moved my Xpedo CXR Pro onto a new pair of dual sided Favero Assiomas.
Problem.
If you tighten the nut to 9 nm the pedal freezes in place and cannot spin. Had to gently tighten the nut, then use the end cap to hold in place. Seems to work fine at the moment. No wiggle. Spins well. But will this become a problem since the nut is not properly tightened?
There’s a trick that you have to use for the CXRs: Don’t use the dust cap that sits right against the pods. Then you can tighten the nut down normal. There’s still an O-ring that is there and will keep the mud out.
Even following the instructions posted above, I had this issue on one of my pedals (but not the other) because as I tightened down, the pedal body started to cut into the plastic pod. Not sure where I went wrong, but check for Mark’s on your Assioma pod to see if that’s the culprit. If so just do as you have, use the dust cap with some loctite to keep it in place.
My next step is to make a slightly longer and more robust extender version that also combines the two pieces per pedal. Though, that’d lose what’s good about this first version; which is that I can still fit the socket wrench to swap pedal bodies without having to remove the 3d printed extenders.
I would still be worried that my shoes would rub the power pod sometimes and eventually cause a failure. I would rather make the platform taller so it the shoes can’t reach the pod. But that’s just me.
I had the following exchange with Xpedo relating to when the M-Force 8 would come back into stock:
17th June 2021
I’m trying to get hold of a pair of the M-Force 8 pedals in the UK. They appear to be out of stock with all of the usual suppliers. Do you know if more stock will become available and if so when this is likely to be?
We are expecting a shipment in the next 4-6 weeks. We recommend you sign up for the in-stock notification
2nd August 2021
I just wanted to check with you to see if there’s any news on when the Xpedo M-Force 8 will be arriving
Still no confirmed ETA but hoping for September.
So it looks like Xpedo are not really sure if/when the M-Force 8 will be available again.
Agree it would be nice if the pod was completely protected. But I used platform adaptors before, and that made it feel really sketchy with the high stack height (the small platform size might not have helped). Was about 5mm thick, and had 1mm clearance above the pod. Got it closer with some filing and different cleats, but still felt weird (xpedo vs look cleats I checked had about 0.5mm difference if I recall correctly)
Rode my newer version which are longer. Wasn’t using my 5-10’s, but as usual with flat pedals, found my feet gravitating outwards. Wanted to try the 5-10s, but then crashed, so going to stay off the bike/unicycle for a few days.
This version seems plenty long now, but I might try another 1cm later.
use the innermost pin holes and attach something. 2 longer M4 bolts pictured below. Maybe with a cylindrical post being compressed by the bolts, it will be strong enough, but doubt it.
extra large crank boot. I was going to try to 3d print one to protect the pod from rock strikes anyways, so might try something that wraps around the pod partially. That way, during part of the pedal rotation, it’d bump my foot away if it starts to get too close.
I’m also not too worried about durability from my foot occasionally hitting it. My cleat bolts hit the pod when I frantically try to clip in sometimes. Can see some decent marks from those instances…
I have had a few rock strikes on my SPD hack Assiomas and they have held up, knock on wood. But cleat/rock strikes are compressive loads and shoe rub is torsional. Epoxy holds up well to compression but not torsion. That’s my concern.
So I tried Shimano PD-ES600 bodies with a pair of Assiomas Shi. The non threaded part of the axle is around 7mm longer on the Assioma, solved with 3 rubber O rings (14mmx2.50mm, even though the axle is actually 16mm in diameter). The thread is the the same for (probably) all Shimano pedals. Looking at the exploded views for the Shimano pedals (SPD), I think a better fit would be with the PD-EH500 or PD-ED500.
I’m using this on a road bike and the PD-ES600 are road bike pedals with spd. The Q factor increase is around the 7mm from the original pedals (I think it’s even less that the original 1cm increase from the usual conversion). It would probably be similar for some MTB XT pedals which seem to have a similar axle.
Comparing the 2 axels, there is a bit of an empty area on the PD-ES600 that can be filled by the Assioma module. With a proper shimano adapter from Favero to shorter offset axels, I think it’s possible to get no Q factor increase at all.
Checking again the specs for Assioma Duo Shi (https://cycling.favero.com/shop/assioma-duo-shi), there is an accepted Q factor increase which seems to be in the same range as my conversion (6-7mm). When pedaling I had no issue with the Q factor change.
I’m thinking with a shorter Q factor, even if possible, the shoe will touch the sensor, so its ok as it is now.
that it continues to be.
