dooley

Anyone had any experience of them? Good, bad, or just ok?

dooley

Nobody?

Alloy Addict

Well I'm afraid that I can't answer any questions for you, but I used to lust after them a lot. They used to get a lot of good press, but you rarely read anything bad about products in enthusiast magazines.

roland

I had a pair back in 1992...they worked fine; you just have to keep an eye on the pinch bolt that keeps the left-side crank on. also the bb uses spacers to adjust chainline and such...it's a weird setup, but they're stiff as hell and as long as you check that pinch bolt every now and then they should work great.

Brian

Are they still around?

zonatandem

Yes, Mr. Durham still makes the cranks.
Designed a tandem for a fellow who wanted 'eliptical' cranks on his tandem. His wife wanted the standard 'round' cranks.
Solution: Left front (pilot's) crossover chainring was a Bullseye eliptical. Left rear (stoker's) chainring was round; both had same amount of teeth, of course. Drive train (on rear right) was a standard round triple.
When viewed from behind the crossover chain seems to bop up and down as the Bullseye eliptical reaches the apex; but works great. They now have over 30,000 miles on that set-up! Both riders are happy!
BTW the pilot is 6'7", stoker is 5'2"! Durham built custom crankarms for pilot: 220 mm!
Have seen very few of the elipticals in use, but seem to have advantages/disadvantages for some.

Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem

Brian

220mm cranks on a tandem? Reminds me of that really cool, lowered purple hot rod at the Petersen Automotive Museum - "Scrape".

Shandit66

Hi Dooley, Yes, I have 2 pairs of them, both 192 mm. I've got over 30,000k on one set and about 15,000 on the other set. Both are pretty scratched up by now and have a little rust, but show no other signs of wear. I'm 6'3", 200+ lbs, and a big gear cruncher, so you can imagine the amount of torque that goes into them. I've frequently snapped spokes from the torque and thats on 36 spoke wheels. The cranks themselves are bombproof.

The only weakness is the BB bearings. They last about 1 season before there's too much lateral play. I personally find this acceptable. Replacements are about $35 and takes about 40 min.

What I like is the stiffness. Mounted on my oversized Klein, there is no BB flex at all.

Secondly, the length is fantastic. Once you get used it, you can spin as fast as any 172's etc. Anyone who argues differently hasn't serious tried long cranks. I've seen/heard a dozen really dumb arguments why long cranks are slower - but this just doesn't make any sense at all. Longer cranks provide more torque - period. Its high school physics, based on simple leverage. RPM x torque = power. If you can spin long cranks at the same rate, you have more power, end of story. Ask my riding buddies who are much lighter, why I can beat them up the hills.

Roger Durham is about 75 now and pretty much retired, but if you're nice to him and patient, he'll reward you with some of the best cranks in the world (well until Shimano stole the idea. Ok the new Dura Ace cranks are lighter and have a great finish etc. Thats scale mass production for you. What get my goat is Shimano passing the idea off as their own engineering, when all they did is wait for Roger's patent to expire. Then they rolled it out without paying him a dime.) He's at
Bullseye Cycle
57460 Encelia Drive
Yucca Valley CA
92284
(800) 874-0600

Brian

Mate, you'll notice no one's posted in this thread for 6 months. We should probably let sleeping dogs lie.

Oh, welcome to the forums.