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new "vintage" IRD crank

Old 01-31-10, 02:00 AM
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new "vintage" IRD crank

Many of you are probably aware of the new (old school) crankset that IRD is releasing that is "inspired" by the classic Campy NR Strada. (I went looked for a pic on the internet, but can't find one tonight).
it's primarily aimed at the fixie crowd: has 144bcd spider and intended for one chainring (no "ramp" on the inside of spider for an inner ring).

The one pic I saw looked pretty nice, but there was one detail that caught my eye and seemed odd:
it's for a square taper BB, and the square hole in the center has the flats perpendicular to the arm, where nearly every vintage crank I own has the points of the square inline with the arm...rotated 45º to what IRD is doing.

Is there any legitimate engineering principal involved here, or...just style?
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Old 01-31-10, 02:08 AM
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They're not on the IRD website, and I can't find anything about them on the internet. Where did you hear about these?
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Old 01-31-10, 02:21 AM
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https://www.interlocracing.com/cranks.html

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Old 01-31-10, 02:33 AM
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Weird. They didn't come up when I googled "IRD track crank".

Hot damn those are nice, though. Any word on a pricetag?
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Old 01-31-10, 03:04 AM
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Nice quality I see there, but a big bummer that they didn't bother to follow through with a double. Fixie riders seem to be getting all the attention these days
I don't think it makes a difference that the spindle holes are rotated 45 degrees from what's typical. Must be a way they thought of to make their cranks a bit different enough from the Campy NR to keep people off their backs.

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Old 01-31-10, 06:52 AM
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165 and 175 only. fail.
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Old 01-31-10, 06:52 AM
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Originally Posted by Chombi
Nice quality I see there, but a big bummer that they didn't bother to follow through with a double. Fixie riders seem to be getting all the attention these days
Chombi
it is called marketing. the fixies are getting attention now because it is "cool" just like it was/is fashionable to have a uncomfortably stiff ugly carbonfiber bike for the last few years. so most companies did not bother making an afordable decent road bike

great looking crankset. if it takes off maybe Electra will make a double
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Old 01-31-10, 08:14 AM
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I like. With vintage campy cranks having a history of cracking/failing, it's nice to know there is an alternative to buying another campy crank on ebay for ~$300, which may yet fail.
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Old 01-31-10, 08:40 AM
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Originally Posted by unworthy1
Is there any legitimate engineering principal involved here, or...just style?
I've seen the 90 degree flats used on some el-cheapo MTB cranksets. Nothing much to it, far as I know - except that it forces you to use matching arms.

-Kurt
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Old 01-31-10, 08:50 AM
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They look great. A double in a 170 for my son's Super and we would be good to go. I'm patient. It gets old bidding on over-priced "great condition" items on ebay. I could walk into the shop and have the boys order this much easier. Plus, if there is a problem I can bring it back! I'll watch for this, and thanks for sharing.
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Old 01-31-10, 09:11 AM
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Originally Posted by Exit.
Hot damn those are nice, though.
I agree! Just need one in a double...
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Old 01-31-10, 10:46 AM
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Originally Posted by Bianchigirll
it is called marketing. the fixies are getting attention now because it is "cool" just like it was/is fashionable to have a uncomfortably stiff ugly carbonfiber bike for the last few years. so most companies did not bother making an afordable decent road bike.
It's called making a profit, and market research (marketing) is a big part of that. If you want to make money, you produce what will sell, not what a handful or retro grouches wish for. If there is little demand, there will be little or no production.

WRT to carbon fiber - ugly is in the eye of the beholder, and I've seen plenty of modern bikes that are pretty snappy looking (to my eye). And uncomfortably stiff? My CF bike's best quality is that it has a nice smooth "steel like" ride. It is a joy to ride for long distances, and I've done many centuries on it.
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Old 01-31-10, 12:01 PM
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Originally Posted by cudak888
I've seen the 90 degree flats used on some el-cheapo MTB cranksets. Nothing much to it, far as I know - except that it forces you to use matching arms.

-Kurt
Good point, Kurt, sounds like yet another "marketing" driven decision...and thanks to kpug505 for finding the pic, it's weird how they seem to be hiding it at IRD.
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Old 01-31-10, 12:28 PM
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I think the Campy NR crank and chainrings is the finest looking crank ever designed. I wonder is these cranks have dustcaps?

Having lived with the 144 bcd on numerous bikes over the last thirty years it is limited when it comes to low gears. I recently took one such bike on a ride with very steep hills and it was brutal. I would need to mate the 42-52 double with a 15-32 rear cluster.
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Old 01-31-10, 12:36 PM
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The Campy cranks that I have had crack all had cracks propagating from the points of the square taper, in line with the axis of the crank arm. I would guess, but don't have any good evidence for this past intuition, that the stress on the arm is greater at this point. Obviously most of the force rotates about the BB spindle, but there is some force perpendicular to the rotation axis towards the center of the bicycle. It's the same force that you exert when you do the test for a loose crank arm - squeeze the arm towards the chainstay. In a perfect world there should be no motion in this direction, but we all know how well that assumption works in bicycles. When there is movement, the old style would have the point of the square taper in line with the force, essentially concentrating the pressure on the crank arm at that point. Here you have the force against a flat, hopefully spreading out the pressure and reducing the chance for a split arm.

I can't think of any good reason why the IRD orientation wouldn't be fundamentally stronger or easier to manufacture. If the industry was evolving from cottered cranks, where the orientation does make a difference, to cotterless, then I can see why the original makers put the hole in the orientation that they did. And then this was copied, no one bothered to change it, and so on....
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Old 01-31-10, 01:20 PM
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Originally Posted by Bianchigirll
it is called marketing. the fixies are getting attention now because it is "cool" just like it was/is fashionable to have a uncomfortably stiff ugly carbonfiber bike for the last few years. so most companies did not bother making an afordable decent road bike

great looking crankset. if it takes off maybe Electra will make a double
This is just an over-generalization. I rode an "ugly' Pinarello FP3 for 9 days last summer, and it was certainly as comfortable as my De Rosa SLX, which fits me like a glove. Beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder, but I thought the bike looked plenty hot! Town square after town square, my wife and I received approving nods from other riders/tourers. And OMG it sported Shimano Dura Ace 10 speed no less. My wife, who can ride the daylights out of most of my friends, was also riding a CF bike, a Wilier Izoard that she absolutely loved. As for a low cost road bike, a riding buddy picked up a Surly Pacer. Handsome it is, at least to my eyes. A nice silver color with a white Regal and chrome fenders. 105 level Shimano which is plenty nice for a lot of riders. He paid $975 brand spankin' new. Costs a lot less than people think.
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Old 01-31-10, 02:43 PM
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Originally Posted by Chombi
Nice quality I see there, but a big bummer that they didn't bother to follow through with a double. Fixie riders seem to be getting all the attention these days.

Chombi
I can't think of any reason it wouldn't work with a double, provided you used an appropriate axle.
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Old 01-31-10, 03:54 PM
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Originally Posted by stausty
The Campy cranks that I have had crack all had cracks propagating from the points of the square taper, in line with the axis of the crank arm. I would guess, but don't have any good evidence for this past intuition, that the stress on the arm is greater at this point. Obviously most of the force rotates about the BB spindle, but there is some force perpendicular to the rotation axis towards the center of the bicycle. It's the same force that you exert when you do the test for a loose crank arm - squeeze the arm towards the chainstay. In a perfect world there should be no motion in this direction, but we all know how well that assumption works in bicycles. When there is movement, the old style would have the point of the square taper in line with the force, essentially concentrating the pressure on the crank arm at that point. Here you have the force against a flat, hopefully spreading out the pressure and reducing the chance for a split arm.

I can't think of any good reason why the IRD orientation wouldn't be fundamentally stronger or easier to manufacture. If the industry was evolving from cottered cranks, where the orientation does make a difference, to cotterless, then I can see why the original makers put the hole in the orientation that they did. And then this was copied, no one bothered to change it, and so on....
Stronglight specifically designed their 106 and 107 cranks supposedly using "softer"(?) aluminum alloys to avoid the cracking that Campagnolo and Mavic were experiencing with their cranks in the 80's I've had a 106 crank on my Peugeot for over 20 years now and have had it on and off the spindle many many times and never had any cracks develop on them so far, despite the less amount of material they used on the cranks (everything looks slimmer/thinner sectioned on the Stronglights), and despite all the tightening and loosening cycles it has gone through all those years. So I think the cracking on Campy cranks cannot be blamed on the orientation of the spindle hole, but more on the type of alloy/heat treating that they might have employed on their cranks (too brittle?). JMOs

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Old 01-31-10, 04:00 PM
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Originally Posted by JohnDThompson
I can't think of any reason it wouldn't work with a double, provided you used an appropriate axle.
Yes, it could be made to work with the right spindle legnth and adjustment of the BB (Adjustable cartridge type with lockrings and cups at both ends.) to ge a t good chainline for a double, But I would still like to get the support for the inner ring as proper for a double. In the end, I wouldn't want to put anything on my bike that was designed for a different purpose if I can help it. Anyway. I don't think IRD would endorse using their fixie/SS crank to drive an inner chainring because of liability issues

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Old 01-31-10, 04:07 PM
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Originally Posted by Chombi
Yes, it could be made to work with the right spindle legnth and adjustment of the BB (Adjustable cartridge type with lockrings and cups at both ends.) to ge a t good chainline for a double, But I would still like to get the support for the inner ring as proper for a double. In the end, I wouldn't want to put anything on my bike that was designed for a different purpose if I can help it. Anyway. I don't think IRD would endorse using their fixie/SS crank to drive an inner chainring because of liability issues

Chombi
Perhaps not, but the steps that inner chainrings sit on don't seem (to me) to provide much, if any, support. You can put a chainring on them without the bolts and the ring can rotate off without any sign that the steps did anything. To me, the steps seem to make setting up the crank just a tad bit easier since you can sit the rings on them while you insert the bolts. I can't see how using an inner ring without steps would be any more or less dangerous than using an inner ring on a crank with steps. All the support for the rings seems to come from the rings inability to shear the bolts.
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Old 01-31-10, 04:12 PM
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The original;

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Old 01-31-10, 07:59 PM
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Originally Posted by Chombi
Yes, it could be made to work with the right spindle legnth and adjustment of the BB (Adjustable cartridge type with lockrings and cups at both ends.) to ge a t good chainline for a double, But I would still like to get the support for the inner ring as proper for a double. In the end, I wouldn't want to put anything on my bike that was designed for a different purpose if I can help it. Anyway. I don't think IRD would endorse using their fixie/SS crank to drive an inner chainring because of liability issues

Chombi
We don't know the thickness of the spider arm to know if it would work as a double unmodified. Having advised that, the lands on each arm help place the ring, but don't really help hold the ring, that is the chainring bolts job. Think of the physics, what is the direction of the forces acting upon the ring and bolt under load? If the lands were necessary, every TA or Stronglight crank that only uses the chainring bolts only to hold the inner rings would be failing.

I applaud the "re-issue". Anyone seen the Electra high flange hubs in a box yet, at a bike shop?

Also, does anyone know the spacing of the cogs on IRD freewheels? Narrow? like an ultra 6? Or?
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Old 01-31-10, 09:21 PM
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Well, I went ahead and emailed IRD to see if they perhaps had any plans of producing a double-chainring version of this crankset, perhaps with a 130BCD. I will post here if I hear a reply from them.
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Old 01-31-10, 09:52 PM
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Originally Posted by Chombi
Yes, it could be made to work with the right spindle legnth and adjustment of the BB (Adjustable cartridge type with lockrings and cups at both ends.) to ge a t good chainline for a double, But I would still like to get the support for the inner ring as proper for a double. In the end, I wouldn't want to put anything on my bike that was designed for a different purpose if I can help it. Anyway. I don't think IRD would endorse using their fixie/SS crank to drive an inner chainring because of liability issues

Chombi
That little plateau to support the inner ring is superfluous. Plenty of multi-ring cranks have been made without that support and have held up fine.
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Old 01-31-10, 10:55 PM
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I have seen several campy strada cranks crack at the junction between the crankarm and the spider arm. This crank looks to have exactly the same stress riser built in...cool cranks though, and the fix would probably be just as it was with the strada: round the juncture with a rat tail file.
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