Originally Posted by
Leisesturm
...But this is very interesting: "Supposedly, the ideal crank length for maximum production of power, irrespective of the size and conditioning of the rider, is 145 [mm?]". Really? This is astoundingly interesting. Where did you hear this? How do we reconcile this with the reality of 165, 170, 172.2 and 175 cranks on production bikes all over the planet??...
My speculation... not because I know... but
Maybe it's a bit of the 'Roman Empire, roman roads, and roman chariot track width' which accounts for so much in our wheel based world - like train track width, etc...
... ok, it's not about track width...
but thinking back to the earlier days of bike road racing, and not even that far back, I can remember when we rode 5 spd, 6 spd and even 7 ultra into the early 80's.
with that you needed a bunch of cogs in the teens, so it was rare to go much over a 21 on the rear for most road races. Races with real climbing we did in 23 & 25s...
and all that with front ring set of 53/42... or 54/44... (for flatter races) with that climbing cog of 21 or 23 or 35... really flat races meant you had a 13-> corn cob...
The ONLY way to get those around with any kind of 'spin' would require a leverage that a 170 or more could produce...
That Standard , like roman chariot track width has persisted into the 'modern' era...
I'm still on 172.5 (and on one bike 175) ...
I'm curious and will prolly spring for a crankset at 165, to 'see' what that really means/dos - because it's interesting and fun to experiment...
...maybe '165' might be for cycling what 'Shaped' and short, really wide skis did for skiing ??? (alpine skiing...)
Ride On
Yuri