Road Cycling - Q factors please

I'm a newbie to competitive cycling (triathlon) and following injury find my record triple chainset (160+ mm) is now too wide for comfort. I could spend the weekend touring bike shops with a tape measure but maybe you could help. I'm looking for a Q factor around 140mm (43.5 mm chainline).Any suggestions? Anyone got a Record double chainset to measure? Thanks.

According to my July 1990 copy of Bicycle Guide, most of the upper end European cranksets of the time would achieve your requirement. Keep in mind, however, that this is before (true?) 130 mm rear dropout spacing, which would push out the chainstay by the end of the crankarm 1-2mm. The Japanese cranks, with the exception of the Dura-Ace and the Suntour Superbe Pro, would not be as narrow. You will also have to use the correct bottom bracket to get the low Q.

And you will have to give up integrated brake/shift levers. There's not enough room between the outer chainring and the crankarm for modern FDs to work.

A list, copied from Grant Peterson's article:

Campagnolo:

Athena 132mm with the stock spindle (warning: might be typo! might have been 152mm)
C-Record 138mm with the stock spindle
NR/SR 135mm with 120mm stock spindle

Mavic:

631 138mm with 114mm spindle

Shimano:

Dura-Ace 142mm with stock spindle

Suntour/SR:

Suntour Superbe Pro 145mm with stock spindle

TA:

5-arm 132mm with stock spindle
Cyclotouriste 132mm with stock spindle

These are double cranksets. Only the T.A. Cyclotouriste will build into a triple at 140mm.

Everything else is wider. Some of these cranks use modern 130 or 135mm bolt circles, and some of them use the old 144 mm bolt circle, and the T.A. Cyclotouriste is, um, unusual. If you have fat chainstays you will not be able to achieve the low Q numbers. I don't know which modern framesets will work with these cranks, though old technology lugged frames certainly will. Keep in mind that you can make a start at this just by pushing your cleats to put your feet next to the crankarm.

Good luck on finding this stuff. In January there were just a few 165 and 170mm T.A. (Tevano) 5-arm cranksets left at Mel Pinto Imports. Somewhere there is a website that sells old Campy parts. As for the rest of the crankarms, you're going to have to haunt the swap meets and get lucky, unless there is a vintage Japanese part website (why not?).

Check out the modern TA cranksets . Peter White Cycles website is a good starting point.

The modern T.A. Zephyr crank (110/74mm bolt circle) is listed as having a Q of 152-155mm in the Rivendell catalog, and I think the modern T.A. Alize crank (130/74mm bolt circle) is identical except for the chainring bolt circle diameter, so it will be 152-155mm also. Q data on the Peter White website is consistent with this.

The popularity of integrated brake/shift lever systems and bicycle frameset design drives modern crankset design, and that tends to make cranks wider. like it or not. About the only way you can get narrower is by going back to a friction front lever (bar-end or down-tube), and getting an old set of high-end crankarms, i.e., Nr, SR, Tevano, or (wide) Dura-Ace. Might need a narrow frame as well.