Originally Posted by
alcanoe
Over here, you can still get the internal bearing mountain bike cranks. When I built my wife's last mountain bike, she wanted a new crankset, so to avoid a "crank-set gap", I got two LX external bearing crank sets (one for me) as they were "only" $120 US at the time.
I then found out that you need to reface the bottom bracket on the older bikes that used the internal type. If you don't, the bearings will wear quicly as it's the BB surfaces that align the external bearings. Luckily, I have a neighbor who is an lbs mechanic and he ran over and did my frame.
The XT is about an ounce lighter than the LX and costs far more. I assume the oz is because it uses an aluminum 22 ring instead of steel one. I prefer steel as in the mountains, the aluminum small ring wears relatively quickly if you bike a lot.
Al
I would have gone for the LX but it is not listed over here. It is either Deore- which I do not like- Or XT which is too expensive. The LX has always been good quality- far above Deore and not much below XT.
And on the rings- I always use Ally rings as I find the steel ones seem to wear out chains quicker. And I always buy Middleburn rings. This is due to the Tandem as That thing goes through crank rings at a tremendous rate- or used to. The middleburn rings are perfectly round and last twice as long as Shimano.