Originally Posted by
wgscott
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My impression, which it sounds like might be 180° off, was that shortening the crank would effectively cancel the benefit of having one lower gear.
You talked about dealing with flexibility and you probably can concentrate on that instead of wondering about the effects of shorter cranks on hill-climbing ability given that you probably cannot go below 165s without spending big bucks. You might try installing Ride2 crank shorteners to see if going to shorter cranks addresses the flexibility issue.