Tandem Cycling - Lightest/latest cranksets

Just for fun, I'm planning to replace my ultegra 9spd crankset with an outboard bearing type crankset this winter. Carbon cranks look pretty, but since I'm staying under ~$400, what high end alloy road cranksets should I look at?

If you've want a single sided drive with outboard bearings, you have a medium sized problem; you can probably cludge together two Dura Ace cranksets from ebay if one is a triple and you somehow use one of the rings to run a connecting chain. Sheldon Brown, John Allen's, Christoph Timm's site all have useful info. Generally though the method only works with a cheap rear crank as you need a big gap between the big ring and the crank arm.

If you want a connecting chain on the left you have a larger problem; you both need to either find a worthwhile upgrade from Ultegra for $400 and find one with outboard bearings. The only one that I can think of could be the FSA Gossamer MegaExo crankset for c.$360 for a set. I'm not convinced that it's a real upgrade though; it's still a mid quality aluminium crankset. Other Aluminium cranksets could be a bit lighter, but are not noticeably better. You could also look at TA, Stronglight, Da Vinci ($550) or Race Face but few of these if any do external bearings. Real upgrade would be an FSA carbon crankset. This costs $650ish. My advice is either to save up or stick with what you've got for a while longer as there isn't much better for reasonable $s IMO.

The other alternative used to be to build your own tandem crankset using 3 right hand cranks and helicoil the pedal threads or swap pedal axles. Problem nowadays is that with Shimano or Campag you can't fit two right hand cranks together as the bottom bracket spindle is integrated into the crankarm. Short of re-welding a campag crankset's spindle so that two right hand cranks can be bolted together, this isn't going to work. An interesting project, but cost would be > $400 since you need 3 cranksets for this.

Final plan of attack would be to write a nice letter to Campagnolo and see what happens.

Just for fun, I'm planning to replace my ultegra 9spd crankset with an outboard bearing type crankset this winter. Carbon cranks look pretty, but since I'm staying under ~$400, what high end alloy road cranksets should I look at?

See if TREK will sell their 2008 Bontrager Carbon Tandem Cranks as spare parts