Wanted (to borrow) Chainset with 165mm cranks

[garyg]

I have been reading up on optimum crank lengths and would be interested in trying out shorter cranks before spending cash.

Any short people or ladies out there who would have an old chainset with 165mm cranks that I could borrow? (would have to be for a road bike not a track bike).

I could strip it off a bike and re-fit afterwards - all cleaned up.

Thanks guys/gals!

[barryvankellett]

Gary, I have 172.5mm cranks on my Road bike and cross bike, 165mm cranks on the fixie and 175mm cranks on the mountain bikes...

172.5mm is supposed to be my "ideal" crank length, I honestly can't really tell much difference. But I have never had much in the way of set up issues so maybe I am just a flexible kinda guy?! :-)

[garyg]

Baz I heard you were very flexible ;D

I ride 172.5 myself but have ridden 170 and 175. Never ridden 165's though so I thought I would need to try 165's to see if I could detect any difference at all.

The range of motion of the knee from 172.5 to 165 would be 15mm less (7.5mm BDC, 7.5mm TDC).

If you are interested look at the blurb on the powercranks website they advocate tiny cranks (which of course they sell!) and make big claims as to their effectiveness.

Do you notice a difference between the mtb and fixie as that's a 20mm difference in range of motion?

I suppose the difficulty is you would probably never be in comparable gearing across both bikes so it could be hard to detect the difference.

[garybailie]

Gary I had to get 177.5 cranks, apparently it was the power, I hear Van K is now using 190's....albeit with snow nipples............, no pun intended

[barryvankellett]

Hard to quantify the difference due to the difference in riding styles between on road fixed gear and off road (mostly racing) freewheel
The experts say shorter cranks are easier to spin which is apparently half the reason why shorter cranks come on fixed bikes, the other half being that your pedals won't hit the tarmac unless you really lean it over pedalling round the bends...

Though most cheap fixed cranks are just regular 175's with the pedal hole bored slightly higher up.

Took my snow nipples off last night Gaz, the big thaw had started.

[barryvankellett]

Was just reading this article on the subject - cervelo.com/en/engineering/ask-the-engineers/crank-length.html

[Gavin]

Gary text or ring Chris McCann ......Inspired Cycling......he was talking to me about a 165 crank for my TT bike last year .......give him a bell very helpful and knowledgable about bike setup ........... the set up on the TT bike is probably the best money I've ever spent on a bike............mobile [phone]