Look are launching a new pedal called the Kéo 2 Max Blade, taking the existing Kéo 2 Max and adding a composite strip to provide the tension, a lot like the carbon blade in the Kéo Blade.
Look have been using a carbon blade – a strip of flexible material – rather than a metal spring in the cleat retention mechanism of their high-end pedals for a few years now. You can’t adjust the release tension like you can with a metal spring, but you do get to choose between different blades that provide different levels of tension.
Now Look have trickled down the technology to the Kéo 2 Max pedal.
“With that new material, the sensations of engaging and disengaging are located at an intermediary level between a spring pedal and a pedal with a carbon blade,” say Look.
The Kéo 2 Max Blade has a platform area of 400mm2, which is 18% larger than that of the Kéo 2 Max, and a width of 60mm. The axle position is the same but the stack height – the distance from the centre of the axle to the sole of your shoe – is slightly lower at of 14mm as opposed to 15.7mm.
You get to choose between blade tensions of 8N m and 12 N m. The pedal features a cromo axle, one needle bearing and two ball bearings.
Look claim a pedal weight of 118g – that’s 12g lighter than the Kéo 2 Max – and a pedal plus cleat weight of 152g.
The Kéo 2 Max Blade will be available in both black and white but we don’t yet know when and we don’t have a price either (we’ve asked and will update when we know).
Look’s UK distributor is Fisher Outdoor Leisure.
Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. We send him off around the world to get all the news from launches and shows too. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now pushing 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.