Low Q-Factor Cranks
 

I just built up a rain bike with Campy Triomphe cranks and I was kinda surprised with the Q-factor when I first hopped on. It was so much narrower that I readjusted my cleats (SPD-SL) to nearly straight. After the ride, I decided that I want my other bikes to feel the same. I'm looking for preferably non-Campy cranks. It must be silver, have 170mm arms, and look appropriate on a mid-80s bike, but the rest is optional. Niceties would be 110bcd and JIS square tapers. What are some good options?

All the t.a. clones with 50.4 bcd are pretty narrow but the are not 110 of course.

It doesn't have to be 110bcd, but my issue with 50.4 cranks is their lack of stiffness. They also would look out of place on a sporty machine.

i understand on both counts. Personally i am not very sporty.

Isn't there a 110mm bcd adapter available for the 50.4mm bcd cranks?

yes, the new suntour makes it.

It is kind of funny... Campagnolo touts its low Q-factor. last time i went for a bike fit, the guy wanted to sell me 1cm standoffs for the pedal, but he couldn't come up with hollow ones that would allow a 8 mm Allen wrench in. he said, your feet should be as wide as your hips, just like when walking or running.
so not sure who is correct on this issue. I felt OK either way, as with most bike fit things... I feel like i have a big range of tolerance.

i worked in a shop where they did fittings. It was pointless for me. The form they are chasing just doesnt work for everyone. I always want my seat higher and bars closer than they want me to have.

Sugino Mighty Tour.

On my '79 Fuji America, they use an asymmetric spindle to achieve a ~142mm q-factor in triple configuration. It's glorious.

I'm a stereotypical lightweight cyclist build. 135lbs as of right now, so I have narrow hips. I wear 30w32l jeans in a tapered design. At the same time, I've had triple cranksets and didn't mind their width too much. What I do mind is having to adjust my cleats every time I want to ride a different bike. I could go wider, yes, but I prefer narrower where possible.

Is there something similar without the fluting? I'm also not against 130bcd.

Use a shoe/pedal system with floating cleats.

The commonly accepted fitting practices are only meant to get you "into the ballpark" for the average anatomy. A good fitter will know hat to look for and ask the right questions, to get the feedback necessary to fine tune the position for the individual.

I'm using the SPD-SL system with yellow cleats.

Tell it to all those guys who won the Tour de France, and most every other race in the world, on those flexy, un-sporty 50.4 cranks! But fashions change, and riders get stronger (apparently). Stiff enough for Coppi or Anquetil isn't stiff enough anymore, for today's sporty riders.

TA Pro 5-vis might be the all-time Q champ, but the crank is so close to the outer chainring that you have to use a vintage front derailer with a flat outer cage plate, no 3-D shaping allowed.

The old Campy Record got more space there in 1978, so look for pre-'78 cranksets if you want the lowest-Q in a Campy. Again, only flat-cage derailers work. Also the pre-'78 spindles were shorter, so mixing years of crank ans spindle can cause chainline to be non-standard. Useful sometimes, if you want the chainline narrower say (post-'78 crank on a pre-'78 spindle). Or a wider chainline, like if your inner chainring hits the chainstay (pre-'78 crank on a post-'78 spindle).

Example, on Battaglin's Pinarello he used to win the Giro in '81, his mechanic mounted a pre-'78 crank on a post-'78 titanium Super Record spindle, which allowed use of a triple chainring. Yes, triples in the TdF! There never was a Super Record spindle in triple length, but they squeezed a triple in there for the Tre Cime mountain stage where he sewed up the win. It also required an abnormally-deep indent in the chainstay, check it out:
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...8919f77e94.jpg
Also of note is the "Mexico" treatment on the cranks -- anodizing removed, all edges radiused, and a high polish. This bike has many fancy touches like that. Columbus KL tubing too, very light for those days. The "drillium" on the inner ring is surprisingly crude though. They didn't even deburr the edges of the holes they drilled. Might have run out of time, drilled the night before the race or some such?

Pinarello has a bike in their "museum" that they claim is the Tre Cime bike, but it isn't, many details are different. At least one magazine was fooled, wrote a whole article about the bike not knowing it's the wrong one. The pic above is the real one, confirmed by race-day photos.

Mark B in Seattle

If that's not enough to cover the range you need, you may want to investigate other systems. Look has up to 50% more float. Most Speedplay systems have at least 150% more float

The modern T.A. Carmina crankset may look good on a vintage racer, I guess. Not cheap but endless chainring possibilities double or triple per the spider.

i love the ability to go 94/58 5 pin. I use an old sugino in that format on my bob jackson world tourist. Easy to get low gears!

I'm going to try this. I'll average the cleat position over the next week and see how much more float I need.

[QUOTE=bulgie;21385506]Tell it to all those guys who won the Tour de France, and most every other race in the world, on those flexy, un-sporty 50.4 cranks! But fashions change, and riders get stronger (apparently). Stiff enough for Coppi or Anquetil isn't stiff enough anymore, for today's sporty riders.

Modern riders are no stronger than Coppi or Anquetil. The way we ride now is very different. Joe Clubrider who is JRA in a 53x11 may well be using higher torque than Coppi climbing the Tourmalet. The torque will expose the lack of rigidity in the TA crank.

I grew up in the era when every coach still told the young riders to avoid pedal pressure. Kids who had suddenly hypertrophied calf muscles would be mercilessly ridiculed. If you had big calves obviously you were ignoring coach and hitting big gears. “Avoid pedal pressure” just sounds meaningless to moderns. How do you get up the hill without pedal pressure? Well, you can, you just never learned. In Coppi’s day, in the time of racers on TA cranks, they studied pedaling mechanics and practiced pedaling style. Now we just shift up and then shift up some more. And complain of spinning out on antique gears of 53x12.

So so a vintage bike requires vintage pedaling style? Yes it does. It may be rideable if you operate it like a modern bike, it won’t have vintage feel at all. Of course pedaling style is never ever discussed. Let’s go one more time around with ISO and JIS or have a chain lube thread instead.

Most flexible enough to complain about TA cranks I have examined have the chainring bolts hopelessly bollixed up. The chainring is bent and bending because the bolts are incorrect and not doing anything. Impossible to explain this to someone who wants “bulletproof”.

For seriously narrow pedaling stance use steel cranks.

110 bcd on a 1980s bike does not look sporty. It looks like an MTB.

[QUOTE=63rickert;21386285]well said.

I wont claim to be any kind of athlete, i tour and commute in an upright fashion but spinning is so much easier, which is why my top gear on my touring bike is a seldom used 90 inches. My bottom gears are as low as i can make them. Generally sub 20. I dont have a cadence meter but i know i am generally spinning faster than most folks i see. I also have more leg extension. For me at 63 the whole project relies on protecting the joints and going at my own pace. In my world t.a. cranks and their 50.4mm brothers are way more than stiff enough.