Mountain Biking - Choice of Crank

Hi Guys,

I've got a choice of two cranks for my Kona. I thought it'd be a shame not to go all out on the choice of crankset, and as my Sampson Unit has now given up the ghost (bless it, it's 8 years old), I've come down to two choices of crank, namely;

Race Face Next LP crankset

Profile Carbon Fiber crankset

Both have their plus and minus points, the Race Face comes with rings and retails for $228.00, while the Profile doesn't come with rings, needs a splined BB, but comes out at $200.00.

Both cranks look great..natural carbon fiber for the Profile, and any choice of colour for the Race Face.

I'll see if I can gimmy some pictures for you.

Cheers for any advice.................................Rich :)

OK guys, check these out and let me know what you think.

http://richmatthews.homestead.com/files/Carbon_cranks.jpg

http://richmatthews.homestead.com/files/Race_Face.jpg

Rich :rolleyes:

Race Face!!!!

I'd go for the Race Face Next LP's they're very light, and very strong. I don't have any experience with Profile's, but I'm asssuming they're more for a Road Bike, but I may be mistaken. IMHO, you can't go wrong with the RF.
L8R G8R

I would stick with race face as well.............................

Rich, go for the race face, i have a race-face stem, seatpost and and bar on one of my bikes and i`m really satisfied (i couldn`t afford a RF crank anymore), they make great products.

Carbon cranks are strong, but if you hit a stone or something hard with this cranks, they are history.

Good luck spending money:D

I guess I'd have to go with the RFs. Carbon fiber scares me.

I have to ask why spend so much on cranks. I've ridden alot of bikes and can't really tell a difference in cranks. My singlespeed has RF turbine LPs on it and while they look really cool I can't say that they do anything the STX-RC cranks on my old bike didn't do.

I'm not trying to be a nag or anything. I mean those cranks you're looking at are sweet, but I'd like to know what makes them worth that kinda money. I've heard people talk about cranks flexing but i've never felt it.

Oh, How 'bout a set of Shimano LX cranks. Nice and inexpensive.

The RF are nice but they are tapered as opposed to splined. Can you get the RF in the new ISIS form? I don't know much about Profile and RF are excellent cranks but I'd think you'd want to stay away from the Square Taper cranks now that everybody is going towards the spline design.

Thanks for the points of view guys!!

I decided to go for the Race Face cranks..again, I was worried about the Profile cranks durability after crashes etc.

With reference to the expense, decided that if I was going to spend lots of money on a Ti frame, I might aswell get wish list parts to go with it..hence the RF and Profile.

I think I'd agree that there isn't too much difference between cranks except perhaps weight etc. The RF cranks seem to be used by lots of people, and I've read rave reviews in MTB mags...not knowing too much about Profile carbon cranks, I went for the latter.

As with the splined BB, the ISIS version of the crank looks nice, but I just had to use my Ti BB, which unfortunately is square tapered.

As soon as the bike is built up, I'll post a picture...hehehe, can't wait!

Rich :thumbup: