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Pick a crank length


ATXZJ
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The question that needs to be asked is "what about Austin"? 

We have short, punchy uphills. I have a friend in CA and I watch her Strava for comparison. She was telling me when we come out in the spring that I better be ready to climb. But they are climbing on jeep roads, 2,000 feet for a 20 mile ride. I generally hit ~1600' for a 20 mile greenbelt ride. Her climbing is steady, long, and at a lower grade. I am pretty sure I can blow past her friends at this point as all of my CA friends have had issues keeping up on greenbelt rides here.

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I can say with 100% confidence that I experience far more pedal strikes now than I did years ago - before the "long and low" geometry trend. I'm not going to go out and replace my perfectly good 175mm crankset, but if I ever do replace it I'll strongly consider going shorter (maybe 165mm) and going a bit smaller on the front chainring (maybe from a 30 to a 28?) to compensate for the shorter crank arms.

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On 11/17/2021 at 8:47 AM, ATXZJ said:

PB has been stirring the pot with this article regarding crank length. Can say that I have 175s and 165s and the shorter ones never felt like they were a disadvantage.

https://m.pinkbike.com/news/why-shorter-cranks-are-better-according-to-science.html

They could have done so much better in that article, especially as it relates to explaining lower rpm with longer cranks.

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On 11/17/2021 at 9:12 AM, AustinBike said:

The question that needs to be asked is "what about Austin"? 

We have short, punchy uphills. I have a friend in CA and I watch her Strava for comparison. She was telling me when we come out in the spring that I better be ready to climb. But they are climbing on jeep roads, 2,000 feet for a 20 mile ride. I generally hit ~1600' for a 20 mile greenbelt ride. Her climbing is steady, long, and at a lower grade. I am pretty sure I can blow past her friends at this point as all of my CA friends have had issues keeping up on greenbelt rides here.

In so cal the climbs are a similar grade but a lot longer. Typically around 250-300 ft/mile.

this is whiting ranch, which is an out and back. So 3800 in around 12 miles. The california riders kicked my ass, but when my BIL rides in austin he really struggles with the tech.

https://www.strava.com/activities/55217428

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serendipitously, over the last year I switched to 165's on my MTBs after being on 175s for basically ever. It started with some curiosity and gas money not being used so diverted on a closeout crankarm set.

I've had them "all over" including Western NC riding, used them with 29er and 27.5 wheels, 30t and 32t ring (with same cassette).

Upshot is that I don't see any down sides, for me and my physiology, and stupidity level, anyway. There's enough punchy stuff in some of my NC trails that I'd stack against BCGB punch to think that there wouldn't necessarily be a problem there.

If someone is concerned about raw power loss you'll be withing small % difference by simply changing the chainring 2t smaller, when I initially switched I put a 30t on but have since gone back to 32t.

Do I think everyone should just down-size? Probably not.

Do I think people are mostly over-cranked? Probably yes.

The only tangible reason I can think someone should down size is if there's some kinestic reason (e.g. hugely better bike fit / pedalling dynamic - if that exists) or of they really REALLY need to cut down on pedal strikes.

And yes, I did have to raise my saddle 10mm to compensate for the change, I ended up having a knee issue before I did that.

Now I just need to find a cheap Campy 2x crankset to change out my road bike ... ha ha ha .. like that's going to happen.

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On 11/21/2021 at 11:03 AM, June Bug said:

Bear, what's your inseam?

Size 32 for me, foot is size 9 fwiw, I usually have the cleat almost slammed to back as far as it can go.

Road bike? Well, sometimes you just gotta roll the paved trail. You know how it is.

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