WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHY CHIPPS
Pulling these pedals off my 1994 Fuquay hardtail, the first thing that strikes me is that they’re not nearly as worn as I remember them looking. The edges have some dings, of course, and the hard plastic end caps have some gouges out of them, but apart from some gentle revealing of their silver aluminium heart, the black paint is surprisingly intact.
I can’t remember when I got these pedals, but they were around when, back in the late ‘90s, I decided to preserve my old handmade steel Fuquay bike as a snapshot of its former glory. However, I wanted the bike to work reliably. Rather than persist with the cool-at-the-time trend for mismatched, super-light components – Gripshift powering a Mavic rear mech, Shimano front mech over a Middleburn chainset… I took it all off and bought a complete XT groupset.