rhm, In my mind, this power test kinda misses the whole point of using shorter cranks.

"Much to our surprise, every rider we tested performed superbly with the 150s! With one exception, all of us had our highest power outputs at a given heart rate with the 150s in the low power, early part of the test. The exception was that my best test was on 180mm cranks, the length I use all of the time on all of my bikes."

Unless I am reading something wrong in that velo article, all the tests were performed at a constant 90 rpms. From listening to folks who have tried going the shorter crank route, the advantage they found was the ability to spin at higher rpm and thus use a lower gear. Some have said their spinning ability was enhanced enough to more than offset the speed difference brought on by dropping a gear. Hence, even though you are pedaling in a lower gear you end up going faster because of higher cadence. I saw no mention of testing enhanced spinning ability or comments from the test riders as to whether short was easier to spin than long. Seems kinda germane to the problem, if you ask me.

I've been threatening to get some short cranks to try for a while now. I haven't yet, well ....because I'm ....uh.... cheap Now that I see these relatively inexpensive "Bulletproof" cranks that come in so many lengths. I'll probably finally bite the bullet and get it done. Thanks for the link to those.

Rik