Haha, sorry Justin. I get the sense that a lot of what I post is not true C&V, and more along the line of VO/Rivendell's "modern retro" - I'm hoping to appeal to your sense of C&V aesthetics, and brush the actual C&V under the rug until I can educate myself a bit more on it .

As for the crankset, I'm more just learning about external BB stuff. Considering trying it out to see if it's got a noticeable difference, and wanted to see if there was one that looked like a normal crankset.

Agreed - most integrated cranksets are either butt-ugly, or look like aliens came up with them.

If you go the external route, make sure you have you BB shell faced. If they are off at all it will lead to a reduction in bearing life.


I think all the aesthetic discussion is subjective though, but I understand it. On my C&V bikes I have original cranks but for my modern bikes, new cranks match the bike's aesthetics. It's all about context.

I only meant that it's the wrong forum if you're looking for helpful information and advice. Most of us, myself included, are going to poo-poo external bottom brackets and the like.

If you go to the website, click on contact us, ask for the name and web site address of the US distributor who carries this particular product, most companies are pleased to pass that info along to you. Once you have the web site address, you go there, find the contact info and ask for the names of any dealers they have in your area. Lots of them are pleased to do so as well, once you have the name of the dealer, then you go to the shop and ask him to order a set for you.

Here in Canada, lots of products require this kind of investigation and you can usually track it down.

well, in that case, I'd rather have a external bottom bracket than a square taper. I never bring a crank puller and a lockring wrench, but I certainly bring allen wrenches. I'd rather deal with an external bottom bracket / crankset on a dark, rainy roadside than a square-taper setup.

the sugino is attractive...other than the price tag. once someone imports that crankset into the US, I imagine the cost will decrease, though.

...well, that's just silly and very fundamentalist of you.

This probably isn't exactly what you're after, but the truvativ elita GXP crankset is extremely cheap (iirc I paid about $50 for the crankset and BB, new), but at the same time decently light and well built. Yeah, they have more drag than a cup and spindle bottom bracket, but they're really easy to install, and new bottom brackets are cheap and install in a couple of minutes, with practically no adjustment needed other than tightening the cranks together. Looks are always subjective though.