About four years ago I suffered from a surplus of pedaling platforms. My road bikes had one system, my mountain and cross bikes another--things were getting out of hand (or out of foot, I suppose). I decided to switch to Crank Brothers and put their excellent road pedal the Quattro on my road bikes, Candy SLs on 'fixed gear bikes and mountain bikes.
For the next few years I became quite the Quattro evangelist, spreading the pedal gospel amongst the members of my bike club like some modern day Matthew or John. I've seen a lot of people adopt the egg-beater based system and love it as much as I do. One cleat on all of my shoes, one system on all of my bikes.
The Quattro isn't as stiff as something like a Look Keo or Shimano SPD-R system, but in my neck of the woods, where clipping out to stop at a traffic light is as important as powering up a hill at full steam, the pedals are an excellent balance between performance and functionality.
So naturally, Crank Brothers has discontinued the Quattro, and will only focus on mountain bike products. I realized this a few nights ago while checking weight specs on their site and couldn't find the Quattro listed anywhere. A quick Google search and I discovered that the plug had been pulled.
Rather than mourn the loss though I've been cornering the market on rebuild kits and cleats, the two things I'll need to keep using my Quattro pedals for the next few years. I've hit eBay rather heavily recently and picked up a few more sets of the pedals, as well as more kits to keep going.
I'm sad though, when the gear all wears out eventually I'll possibly move to some other system--if I'm going to use a different cleat for road and mountain I'm going to re-evaluate the pedal systems from scratch and I'm sure they'll be other products out there.
I guess sales of the Quattro weren't as good as Crank Brothers wanted, but it's a shame to see such a nice product move off to the bike criterium in the sky.
To (almost) quote the Pixies * "And if man if five and the pedal is six, and the pedal is six and the pedal is six then bikes are seven, then bikes are seven, then bikes are seven.... this pedal's gone to heaven..." *
When I heard that Carnacs we’re not available in the US, I hoarded pairs. I also have a pair of Campy rims I won’t let go. Don’t even ride them. My wife doesn’t understand why I’ll buy gear in bulk, but what I know is that if it work, stick with it. In this global economy, you never know when an item will be discontinued, bought out, or not the same as the one that worked.
I am considering switching to bebops myself. I don’t have the investment you do atm.
I have the same problem, road bikes, cross bikes, mountain bikes all with virtually the same cleats.
What a shame that CB decided to discontinue these! Bring ‘em back!
I will certainly miss the quattros. I called crankbrothers and they stated that they will still make the three hole cleat for road shoes. That means you will always be able to find cleats even though the pedal is discontinued. The candy is so popular in cross and it uses the same cleat as the quattro that they will not discontinue the three hole cleat. I guess candys can technically replace the quattros on my road bikes as they are similar in weight, use the same cleat, and have a similar platform. I just like the look of the quattros better for the road.
I have also been a Crank Bros Egg Beaters evangelist for a number of years. I have 5 in-service bikes and ONE pair of shoes, that’s road racing, club riding, single speed commuter, 29er, cyclocross, all in one pair of specialized MTB shoes. Couldn’t be simpler. I have also rebuilt two pairs of CBEBs with the kit from the manufacturer. Easy and cheap, saved me a lot of hassle. Not many pedals even market themselves as serviceable these days, and with the weight-conscious (not me) option of replacement titanium spindles, you can have it all!
Spencer
www.twowheelkarma.blogspot.com
And if you called them a year ago they’d have said they’d keep making the Quattro.
I guess i did not explain enough. When I spoke to crankbrothers they indicated that they were going to keep producing the three hole cleat for use with the candy pedal as many commuters and other riders use this pedal with a road shoe. The two hole quattro cleat would eventually be phased out. I realize that this was a customer service rep. and not the CEO. However, the fact that he gave me this answer right away indicated that he had some insight into what cleats would be available in the future and lead me to believe there is some hope that replacement cleats (in the 3 hole variety) will still be available for quattro in the future by the simple fact that they are for the candys. However, it can;t hurt to stock up just in case if you want to continue to use the quattros.
Bummer. I have the Quattro 4ti on my road bike and Egg Beaters on the mountain and touring bike. I just bought a Quattro rebuild kit off eBay and I have spare road cleats.
On the bright side, the regular EB pedal works well with the Quattro cleat, so an EB4ti would be acceptable alternative to the Quattro for road use.
It was a rather poor mechanical design; one can tell by their products that an experienced mechanical engineer could really up their quality .. But the pedal to shoe interface and the cleat holding just can’t be beat. Its by far the safest pedal out there. I never occidentally came out… whereas I have pulled out of spd spd-sl, look, time ATACs even ! The hard plastic to the pedal wings was actually a fairly decent interace and reasonably stiff. However, the huge problem was the soft plastic body could be flexed considerably so much so that the “body” would dig heavily into the spindle with serious metal galling… but what was / is mainly bad is just the huge amount of softness/ flex when stomping… This could have been so easily fixed, and then probably pros may have even ridden with it, and it would have sold !
It’s really a shame that they did this. I pleaded with them to continue making the Look 4x4 design after Look abandoned it but only got a non-committal response from one of the bros. Now there are no CB pedals made with anything better than a bushing on the inner race. Anyone who’s had to use both knows that a proper bearing is vastly superior and requires less maintenance. My first pair of 4x4s went 15k miles and the bearings were still good. The spring just fatigued too much on one side to retain the cleat anymore. It’s too bad that they discontinued the original road cleat too. I can’t see how the plastic of the quattro cleat will hold up on the platformless eggbeaters.