That's what I love about Engineers. They have no concept of the big picture.

What interests me the most with most "bike discussions" is how small the numbers are. 6 watts over 10 seconds accellerating from 20mph to 30mph....Switch from a 1100g frame to a 1500g frame, save 0.7% percent of total rider+bike weight.....etc.

There's no doubt in my mind that there are improvements to be made, but honestly, 99% of us pedal like the spastic buckets of meat we are, which probably negates all the absolutely minute improvements we might make by a factor of 10. Or more.

For me (and this is funny coming from a guy who has zero motivation to ride at the moment) the biggest improvement you can make to your riding is, well, riding more.

+1
FWIW, after not being on the roadie for about 4 weeks (but training on the MTB in the hills) I found I was going like a train when I got back on the roadie. The effect seemed lessend going from a month of dedicated track training onto the roadie.

Yeah I found that. Didn't take long to get my road legs back and start going like a poof on the roadie again.

thanks http://www.musicianforums.com/forums...lies/thumb.gif

so, I put some 175s on last night, and I felt fkn FANTASTIC!!!
What was I thinkin with them 180s??!! :(

Think of the less rotational weight you have with the 175's :p

Plus you have less rotational weight with the 175's

I'm only around 5'8"-5'9" but I was riding 175mm cranks because they came on the bike & I had no idea they even came in different lengths when I bought it!

Now I've got 170mm but I changed bikes at the same time so I can't really determine how much difference (if any) the shorter cranks make.

too right :)

I might even try some 172.5s today. Rob Crowe can ride at 80kmh into a headwind; he uses 172.5, and he's 6ft3!!!



some of the rec.bicycles.tech heroes have been arguing over that Velo News article

http://www.cyclingforums.com/t327415.html

hmm, I'm 5'11 and my bike came with 172.5's... I think I'd be worried about 'em digging in (cornering) if I went longer cos I think I'm real close now.

im 5'8, short legs tho and i have 170's on my old MTB hardtail and 172.5's on my new MTB and roadie. the 172.5's make a massive difference in feel as far as being able to to power down.

it feels quite foreign now when i rdie the 170's. one thing that ive been curious about is willt he 170's given they have a shorter, more compact rotation help improve pedal stroke? i osmetimes feel that my pedal stroke is improved after using them

Totaly off topic, WTF is a compact crank? is it where you run a smaller inner ring or inner / outer ring on the front?

Nev, I'll swap ya a case of Draught for your DA 180's :lol:

Man, are the forums rooted or what. C'mon Gardner, get ya sh¡t together!

HA! :) That's just the beginning of the whole confusing issue -- some people think it's simply a matter of leverage, but there are so many factors that it's rediculous!! The main conundrum is that the seat has to lower, so the knee is in a weaker (more flexed) position, therefore, some of the potential leverage advantages are negated.....etc, etc.......bigger circles require more work, etc...yada yada. I've been a bit obsessed by this for nearly 2 yearsnow, and I can tell ya the whole thing is overrated, and long cranks aren't worth the extra stress on the knees



from Sheldon Brown:

Compact Crank
"A double-chainring crankset with that permits the use of smaller chainrings than will fit with the common 130 mm B.C.D. (bolt circle diameter). Most "compact double" cranks use the old standard 110 mm B.C.D. which permits the use of chainrings as small as 33 teeth (more commonly, 34 or 36 teeth.)
Compact crank sets usually come with a 50 tooth chainring, and will normally go with an 11 or 12 tooth top sprocket in back.

110 mm B.C.D. double cranks with full-sized (52-42, 52-40, etc.) were common in the late'70s and early '80s, but they had become nearly extinct for double chainrings. The rebirth of this format, with smaller rings, was pioneered by Tyler Hamilton who used one of these in the 2003 Tour de France"


the rings are so small that the bolt circle diameter has to be made smaller!!
I never heard of compact cranks or triples on a road bike until I got onto this forum -- what is it with these Yanks and their granny gears??!! :) Must be all them mountains :p

yeah, I was wondering if you knew any big red heads who need some long cranks :)

You probably paid double what I can get them for though, huh?

Funny. I love bike racer who don;t have the first clue about how their bike works.....makes me laugh.

nah, I think they were $470 or $480 (last year). Cecil Walker now retail them for $537, so they've dropped quite a bit -- they were $620 not so long ago.
Terry Hammond had $725 on his last year, but they would have to have dropped since then!

Dont say that, its much cooler to believe its his ungodly power output breaking his bikes.

A mate of mine rode the Aussie TT champs out at friggin Bayles or Yannathan or Buttferk South or somewhere back in the early 90's. He reckoned Huey was visibily flexing the Merckx TT bike during the TT. Frightening!

Nerds. I hope that they don't get their pocket protectors in a twist.

yeah, "they" say he still holds the ergo power records at the AIS

Well, considering it was the early 90's and TT bikes are designed to be aero, not stiff, I reckon I coulda flexed an early 90's Merckx to buggery....but that's mostly because I'm a fatazz.

470-480 for the latest DAs is a cracker of a deal. Last shop I went into had the XTR MTB equivalent for 900!

My GT has 34/50 FAS carbon 'compact' cranks with a 23/11 cluster. Basically they are lighter because of the smaller chainrings (and the carbon cranks :rolleyes: ), and give a lower granny with the 34/23 while the 50/11 is plenty high enough for most sprinters.

Gees this forum was so fgn slooooooooooooooooooooooooow to day. I gave up trying to post anything earlier and I've been unable to connect for days. Pretty crap.

Did the last of the Tuesday night summer crits last night.
Got 2nd... 1st got in a really good attack in the last couple of corners (used someone from a different grade to aid confusion), sprint was 53.5km/h. Woohoo!! :D

hmmmm.....looks to me like you're in better shape than the other fatty boom-bahs --
been any grumblings that you should to up a grade or 2? :):D