I never really understood the whole compact crank thing. For years the popular racing, and therefore showroom, setup was 42-52/3 with a 13-23ish FW. Then along came the 39-52/3 and guys ran the 12/3-23 for wider gearing or dropped to 12-21 for smoother shifting. This allowed for some pretty good gearing and if you upped the FW to a 12/3-25ish you spread things out more.

Then someone (shipmano I guess to push some new product) decided we had to have compact cranks. I don't really get it. Sure now you have a 12-25 in the back and 34ish something a 48 or 50 something for chainwheels. Seems like that gives you some nice low gearing but you lose in the top. I've never been a good spinner but it seems to me if I am tooling along at 100rpm in a 21x39 you must be cross chaining topped out at 130rpm in the12x36 or crossing again in the 25x48.

I mean that 34-48 crank on you road bike is about the same as the middle and big ring on my MTB.


That Holdsworth crank is beautiful.