Originally Posted by
Ratfish
OK, now we're getting somewhere. So, crank weight only matters (outside of overall weight) when you are stopping and starting a lot, but not so much when you are already going at a particular speed. There seems to be quite a lot of acceleration in general however since it would affect you if you are going from 90rpm to 100rpm and so forth, though maybe the inertia would then help you as you went from 100 to 90.
No, you missed my point again. The difference in weight between cranks and the small diameter of a crank negate any affect caused by acceleration. It goes back to why the wheel weight doesn't matter either. Same theory, smaller example. Nothing spining on a bike has any bearing on the power required to move the bike. All the componets are too small and/or too light to start with.