the winning drivetrain
 

Following in line with my previous poll about wheels, consider the following hypothetical situation:

You have been chosen to participate in a contest. You will be paid an exorbitant amount of money for something along the lines of every watt of power that you can produce. First they ask you to pick whatever bottom bracket that you'd like to use, but they ask you not to make it too hard on them if you can.

You also have to do a press conference where you'll have to explain your choice.

Note: If you're going Phil, do you want the steel, Ti, or proprietary Ti? Also, like the previous thread this is just for kicks.

i don't know that much about watt producing; but doesn't
that have to do with the rider and not the bike or components?

if i was choosing a drivetrain purely on being efficient, i would
go for dura ace 10.

oooooooh DA10.

The old 'heads tell me INCH PITCH (or skip tooth) was the most solid feel.

When you aint got watts, you'd better look good ;)

*tc

Does it go Crank/BB, or BB/crank? I'm not familiar enough with bottom bracket and crank product #'s to tell.

The only "nice" crankset I've ridden is Sugino 75. If I'm paying I don't think I'd want anything nicer for the street.

Right and wrong. Power production depends only on the mechanical efficiency of the drivetrain. Fixed is better for this, slightly. For speed you must be able to put this power to the road in an efficient manner, and thus need gears. A lot of resistance trainers will adjust the resistance to match your cadence for a given power rating, so the gear doesn't matter much.

After disassembling a DA cup/cone bottom bracket, I'm sorta down on them. A quality BB can optimally fit 11 balls per side. DA BB's use 9 balls per side in a huge retainer, doing a lesser job of load distribution throughout the cup. In theory, you could chuck the retainer and use 11 bearings without, but the stock 9 is somewhat disappointing. Any retainer will lose some bearing space, but the size of the DA retainer is pretty egregious...

nope you're not paying, and you get to keep it after the contest ends

http://static.flickr.com/60/217110832_88aeb48a58.jpg

w/ phil bb

I'd probably give Grand Mighty/Hatta a try then.

New Dura-Ace

I can't look at that without mentioning how much I'd like to make sweet,sweet love to your bike.

Given the parameters, the listed options lack imagination, so "Other" should be checked (Edco, SKS, Topline, Cook Bros, Stronglight, American Classic, TA, etc.).

Well this is clearly wrong. Power production depends only on the rider. I'd like to see you prove that the mechanical efficiency of a drivetrain effects how much power the rider is able to put into the system.

octalink is way stiffer and is going to transfer more power than any squaretaper interface can ever dream of. hands down. outboard bearing two piece cranks seem to be superior to octalink. the new d-a is ugly, but works best, and weighs the least. except maybe the newer carbon fsa stuff.

but all that sums up to phil/deep v really though.

voipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoipvoip

i ride campy on the track though. boing!

campy all the way

HAHAHAHA, Sweet!

the poll is limited to 10 options, and so i wanted to keep them viable. afaik edco and american classic never made a bb to match any of the da/campy/sugino track cranks. cook brother's ss crank isn't a competition level crank. stronglight and ta are arguably on the same level as a sugino 75, which was omitted.

the poll was designed with 2 factors in mind. after scouring the track photos at cycling news, it seemed to me that the lion's share of bikes were equipped with da 7710, followed by grand mighty, and then campy record. multiple sources have told me that da 7600 square taper is the overwhelming favorite crank of Keirin racers. secondly, i was interested in seeing how cup and cone bottom brackets fared against sealed ones. i'm a bit surprised that they haven't garnered more votes.