One man's brutal is another man's fun, I guess. (Don't quote me out of context!) I like turning road cranks into track cranks. Are track cranks brutalized? Oh and BTW those shelves don't do anything, they are virtually unloaded in use. They are excess metal that should always be removed, if you're a weight-weenie! Though I'll allow them to stay if historical accuracy is the goal, on a vintage bike. Just know, they are decorative, like the serifs on a typeface. I like my cranks sans-serif.

This tandem left-side crank (for timing chain on a crossover) started life as a right-side road crank. I installed a steel thread insert to make it left hand thread for the pedal, and removed the shelf, which would have hit the chainstay.



Fun Fact, a lot of the sponginess you feel when you stomp on the front (captain's) pedals on a tandem is from the bottom tube being bowed by the chain tension. The only leverage the chain has to bow the tube is the offset out of the center plane of the bike (chainline measurement), so reducing that to the minimum is pure "bolt-on stiffness" with no weight penalty (or any other penalty). So all tandems should have the timing ring just skim the chainstay like this, and should have their inner shelf brutally sawed off. Oh and use the largest chainrings that'll fit, because chain tension (and flex) goes up as the ring gets smaller. I'm a big fan of "some" flex, but a lot of tandems have too much of that spongy feeling at the cap'n pedals.