How to Install Pedals on Your Bicycle

May 07, 2019

Hey, guys, Dustin here, CEO of sixthreezero. Today I just want to show you how to install your pedals. Specifically, I want to show you that the left pedal on a bicycle tightens with a reverse thread. Now, I think this was a tricky piece of installation, because normally the mantra of righty-tighty, lefty-loosey holds true. Guess what? Not in this case. And specifically with the left pedal.

What I've done is I actually just took the left pedal off. When you get your bike at home you're going to see, typically, the cranks are labeled left and right. Or you could determine which is the left or the right, by standing at the back of the bike and the left side is the left side, right side is the right side, while you face the front of the bike. So, left is labeled with an 'L'. And typically on the pedal, you're going to see an L here, either a sticker, let's get a closeup of that, right there. Or you're going to see it on the inside of where the pedal tightens on. There's going to be an L stamped into the metal.

It's a 15 mm wrench. Now, this is specifically a pedal wrench, because it's a little bit narrower than a typical wrench. A standard wrench will work just fine, as well. But we've got this one, works a little bit better.

It's very easy, let me step to the side. You're just going to take your pedal and now you're going to tighten it by turning it to the left. So the reason is, that when you're pedaling forward, you don't want to be pedaling against or to loosen the thread. You want to be pedaling to tighten the thread. That's why the right pedal of the bike follows the typical, righty-tighty lefty loosey, methodology for tightening.

But again, left pedal here we go, we're tightening by turning to the left. It's like magic. It's kind of how toilet bowls flush reverse in Australia. It's just one of those things. Pedals tighten by turning to the left. So, there you go and just put your wrench in there and give it a couple of turns. What I would do, I'd actually put this bike down on the ground and give it a couple more cranks, off the stand. Just because with the tires on the ground it's going to put a little more resistance on the pedals turning. For the sake of right now, I can put my hand here and just pull down a little bit, and there we go.

Don't forget. If you bought a bike from us or you brought a bike anywhere else, left pedal of your bike, while facing the front of the bike, is going to tighten by turning to the left.

If you have any other questions please don't hesitate to reach out to the team at sixthreezero.com or call us, 310-982-2877. Again if you have any questions, fitting, whatever you need, we're here for you.