Almost the closest one. Sonatageek and CS1 are two that I can think of that are closer. I might think about it though. I could take a bike with me and maybe find somewhere different to ride.

CCM did some interesting things... besides using Ashtabula cranks and their ubiquitous single piece hanger they also used a triplex crank very early on and there is a fairly rare "Cyclosonic" crank that uses a one piece crank (hanger) but rides on roller bearings in a smaller shell and the J55 which uses the same smaller shell and conventional bearings.

They also used British 3 piece bottom brackets and Williams cottered cranks on racing bikes and had a cartridge unit that slipped into an Ashtabula shell that had a cottered interface.

Latter day CCM's had cottered cranks that are not of the same quality as the 40's cranks and not as nice as the Ashtabula with the single piece hanger.

I hope that I don't have one of the ones that is difficult to get parts for. :| With some of the options you've mentioned, I'm guessing there may be some challenges ahead of me with this bike.

Why are 'ashtabula' type cranks so heavy? They have marvelously thin arms, and a thin piece of steel doesn't have to weigh much more than a thick piece of aluminum; so the arms should weigh about the same as a cotterless crank. And the spindles are going to be steel in either case, so that too should be about the same. Schwinn chain rings are insanely heavy, especially if you add a chain ring guard, but they don't have to be. Are the bearings so much heavier than on three piece cranks?

119 miles or so from Canton - A quest to find the traces of the manufacturing greatness that once turned our wheels.

- Quixotic.

I had more of less the same questions. When I thought about it a bit, I think it just comes down to that fact that aluminium alloy is just considerably lighter that forged steel. The thinness of the steel simply can't offset the difference in density between steel and aluminium. That's the only logical explanation I can come up with, not that I'm that well versed in this kinda stuff. I do have an abiding love of simplicity and I think that is why the bike I'm riding the most these days in my 1970 Schwinn Collegiate. I hate carrying the bike up and down the stairs at my house, but once I've thrown a leg over it and start rolling, I've a 5h|t-eating grin plastered across my face in short order. Sheesh... I *AM* a bike geek. Is there a 12-step program for bike addiction?

^ In case you missed it, here is that picture of the Ashtabula Bow Socket plant referred to previously by bbattle.

It appears that Bernie of B J Baker Bicycles, who provided the parts for the picture above, is still in business:

B J Baker Bicycle Sales & Service
996 W Prospect Rd, Ashtabula, OH 44004

I think the Astabula crank may have been designed to cope with American road conditions, which in the 19th and early 20th century were much worse than in Europe. Early American cars quickly became tougher and more tolerant of abuse than their European cousins, which were almost unusable once one left city limits. In bicycles, crank designs which worked ok on the paved roads of England and France may not have held up as well on what passed for roads in the U.S.A.

Your bike won't be any problem as the parts should be pretty standard... besides the Ashtabula there were other designs and systems in use long before things got standardized and a 70's CCM would fall into that category.

I read somewhere that Schwinn was working on an alloy 1 piece crank (and an alloy kickstand) towars the end but decided to start selling Japanese bikes instead.

My steel one piece cranks and BB weigh 1lb more than alloy cranks, bb and adapter. One pound is worth it for the looks alone...IMHO.

I cleaned that bike very carefully, greased it thoroughly and rode it for a couple of weeks, then sold it to a very cute rockabilly couple so she could ride something to match his bike. I forget what it was but it was of similar vintage.
She showed up in a poodle skirt and he had his hair slicked back.

Does anyone know if at some point Ashtambula cranks were matched into a DL-1 type Roadster? I think that would be the ultimate (and quite heavy) Post- apocalyptic bike.

Back in the early 70's, I had a secondhand Huffy Rail that was used and abused beyond its design limits. The crankset broke at the pedal threads. I went to my LBS and bought a new crankset, an Ashtabula brand set in a box. The real deal was much better than the cheap one originally on the Huffy. I resumed my abuse of said Huffy with no further problems from the now genuine Ashtabula cranks.

Well, I thought I'd do a comparison, just for the record. I have 2 18 ounce scales. I weighed a Raleigh Heron 3 piece crankset (bearings not included) and came up with 42oz (2lbs, 10oz) or 1200 g.
Here's the rub. I weighed the offside crank, spindle and cotters in one scale, then I balanced the driveside crank on the two scales and added the numbers from both scales.
Then I took a one piece crank with chainring off of a Murray (I don't have a Schwinn handy at the moment) and tried balancing that on the two scales and bottomed them both out. That's 36+oz. Just by feel, I'd bet that the 1 piece is a pound or so heavier. I expect the bearings are a little heavier and the BB shell would be a little heavier, too.
Sorry, I tried. Anyone have a postal scale big enough for a 1 piece?

I'm curious about this, too - Diamondback and Porkchop BMX both make Cro-Mo cranks to save weight. I've got one on my single speed, but I don't have any way to weigh it.

Schwinns also use a different threading standard (24 tpi vs. 26 tpi IIRC) but I think it was just them and not something Ashtabula did across the board.

Some BMX's still use OPC standards, but many of the new bikes use an oddball 3-piece crank in an OPC shell.

All,
Just a liittle more info. I grew in the little town of Conneaut Ohio ( 13 miles from Astabula) - lived in the area from 1958 to 1998. I worked for 22 years at one of the "re-inforced fiberglass auto parts plants" - Trans Plastics. Our company was part of a larger company that also owned Ashtabula Bow Socket for a period of time - I also think they were once called Ashtabula Forge. Anyway, I had the opportunity to go into the ABS plant and watch them make the Astabula cranks. Hard, hot, and dirty work as I remember - harder than my work in fiberglass! Little did I know that I would be handling some of their cranks years later on my rebuild projects.

Chromo doesn't save any weight and isn't any stiffer, it is more resistant to bending. I weighed my 175mm Chromo crank with steel 36T chainring and YST sealed BB, it weighed about 1lb more than a 175mm Shimano DX crank with alloy 38T chainring, UN-54BB and Dimension adapter. I wish there was a 9/16 pedal threaded one piece crank, not many pedal options for the standard 1/2" thread.

Schwinn is 28tpi, everyone else is 24tpi. I am pedantic and correct

I knew I should've looked up the threading standard before posting instead of just adding "IIRC."

Exactly what would you be doing to need a crank stronger than what's standard? I'm a clyde and I've ridden some 3-piece cranks that feel a bit bendy, but not OPC.

There was at some point some manufacturer making 9/16" threaded cranks (with a 3 chainring pin no less) that Harris Cyclery sold. While you'll probably never find one, they do exist. You can get 1/2" to 9/16" adapters, but they're stupidly expensive and push the pedals out about a cm on each side.


On that note, what's the best OPC BB?

Chromoly cranks appeared in the late 70's during one of the big BMX booms. I agree, they're "more gooder" but not stiffer. I like 175mm crank length, anything I find is "Chromo" so why not? I usual pay ~$15 for a NOS 175mm BMX crank, cheap.

For 28tpi Schwinn cranks I've haven't seen anything but old Schwinn BBs, for 24tpi cranks I buy the YST BB with seals, ebay usual has 'em.

Thanks for posting this first-person account!
(BTW - To say that the work at the Ashtabula forge was rougher than a fiberglass plant is saying a lot.)

No problem auchencrow -
Ashtabula Bow Socket was actually a dangerous place to work - there was a fatality there that I remember during maintainence on one of the forging presses. OUCH! I see B J Baker bike shop is referenced earlier - I bought my first new bike there in 1966 - a copper color 5 speed Collegiate. I added the banana seat and butterfly handle bars later - and the nut buster 5 speed stick shift on the top tube. I could do 50 yard long wheel stands on it - spent many hours on that bike until 1969 when I got my driver's license - man I miss those days!

Sugino offered some very nice one piece hangers during the 80's that were made for BMX use... these are extremely solid units.

The forged CCM units are also extremely tough and like Schwinn, their main business was in providing solid utilitarian bicycles for our domestic market and after many decades these cranks are still providing solid service on many bicycles.

Men's bicycles were often fitted with a 52 tooth chain wheel while ladies bicycles were fitted with 48 tooth rings... the gearing on a one speed men's bike with 28 inch wheels and a 18 tooth cog was really steep but with a lighter roadster one could really get out and fly.

Once you get those big wheels spinning they like to stay spinning and I have paced roadies on the flats on old CCM's for short distances which is a blast.

I'm not a metallurgist, but I play one on the net.

All alloys of steel are the same stiffness.

Various alloys of steel have various strengths. Chromoly is stronger than many alloys, so if they use the same amount of material, the product can be stronger than with a more common alloy. If they use less material, it will be the same strength but lighter. Either way, it's more gooder. If it's made with less material, it may also be less stiff, but probably not noticeably.

The additional strength of a one piece crank may or may not be useful. To some, it is. I don't see a lot of bent or broken one piece cranks. I happen to have one, but it's rare.

In BMX freestyle, one piece cranks are looked down upon because heavy riders making hard landings from jumps eventually break the crank in half at one of the "bends". That's why Profile-type tubular chromoly 3-piece cranks are so well-loved there: the splined interface to the spindle is stronger than OPC in that area.

Odyssey sells (or used to sell) a premium one piece crank that is beefed up at the "bends" and is reported to not suffer from the "crank arm broke off" problem. When I was a kid, well-informed riders who didn't have rich parents would upgrade from their stock one piece cranks to the Odyssey version for that safety and durability. Losing a crank arm usually puts you into a pretty nasty wreck in a hurry!