Originally Posted by
Heatherbikes
According to the crank arm charts, I should have 160mm cranks, 165 would be the limit.
It is difficult to find anything in anything less than 165 except for the mythical specialites TA cranks. I did find some specialites TA cranks with 160 cranks online. What would the issues be if they are french threaded? I recently gave up on a french bike project for many reasons, so I dread what this might mean. If I could put them on a modern or vintage bike would there be a bottom bracket issue?
Thanks.
As others have pointed out, tapping French threads to standard English sizes threads is easy to do. It's a very common modification and I'm just about to do just that with a pair of 165mm TA cranks.
You could get pedals with French threads easily enough but then you run into problems of quality, fit and aesthetics.
I've had
3 Lyotard spindles snap on me and despite loving the look of the ubiquitous 460D I can no longer trust them. A real shame as I had them on most of my bikes, now replaced on 3 of them by MKS, a Japanese copy.
You'll also find that a lot of the French pedals on eBay have short threads which are meant for steel cranks - those made for alloy cranks such as TA have longer threads, necessary as the alloy they screw into is weaker than steel and you need more of it for it to be as strong as steel.
Lastly, apart from the Lyotard 460D and the No.3690 Spécialités TA, the more modern, longer threaded French pedals are much of a muchness and pretty boring. They do suit some people, though... YMMV.