Marin’s not made a pedal for more than a quarter of a century, which is a testament to just how much mountain bike heritage the brand has. It’s also very impressive that it’s managed to make one of the best mountain bike flat pedals after 25 years out of the game.

The Oso is a nylon composite construction, with a machined cro-mo axle and bushing and bearing that Marin says is fully rebuildable. The platform has a slightly concave shape and measures up at a lengthy 120mm fore-aft, which is plenty long enough for my size 10 feet. The Oso is narrower than Marin claims though, at 105mm wide, and together with a short spindle your foot sits just a shade too close and scuffs up your crank arms. At 18mm in depth it’s taller than I’d like too, and that probably accounts for the fact it’s heavier than the competition from Chromag or Burgtec too.

Most plastic pedals use a nut and bolt system to anchor in the pins, but not the Oso. Instead, a metal housing has been set into the nylon to accommodate metal pins that thread in from the reverse side. This is a neat bit of design because it means you can always remove the pins even when they get manangled on a rock (as some of mine have). More importantly, you could easily swap out pins for a different length.

And you’re going to want to do just that, because the one major flaw in the Oso is that the pins are too short. There are just nine per side, but that’s not the problem here, they just need to protrude another millimetre or two to make the Oso great. I didn’t slip off and lose a foot at any point, but there’s not that sticklebrick quality you get with a Burgtec or Nukeproof pedal.