This may be a silly question, but I’m building up a cross frame as a commuter/all-weather/most-terrain bike (nothing extreme) but have no idea where to even look for cranks. I’m not looking for something high-end, just decent – like 105 or ultegra level stuff.
Are cross cranks that different from road or MTB except for chainring sizes? A double should be adequate for a non-mountain bike that won’t be seeing a whole many hills, right? It’s going in Spicer cyclocross frame, if that makes any difference.
I think a cx ring set will be a little lower geared then a regular or a compact. You’ll probably be fine with a compact double and just swap out different rings as you see fit.
Something you may want to do, my outer ring is a bash guard and has been really good at keeping my pants from snagging on the inner chain ring. I’ve had zero snags since there are no teeth exposed to latch onto my nice dress pants. Note sure how you dress for work, but a bash guard has worked out surprisingly well.
Well, I need to get a job before I know how I’ll dress but I was thinking something like a 1x9 would probably work fine anyway. That would give me the ability to use a guard of some sort.
Awesome. Still wondering though if there’s a difference – except in chainrings – between cranks advertised as ‘cross’ and those advertised as ‘road’. If not, I’ll just get a set of used Ultegra or something on ebay. I can’t believe how cheap they are.
There really is no set of “cross” cranks; it’s such a small market, we’re lucky they’re even making cross bikes, nevermind components. The closest thing to a cross crank is, as the others said, a compact double. Unfortunately, most of the major manufacturers are lagging behind in that category, so if you want one, look towards FSA or the like. I think they’re actually pretty cheap, too.
[quote=“bonechilling”]
There really is no set of “cross” cranks; it’s such a small market, we’re lucky they’re even making cross bikes, nevermind components. The closest thing to a cross crank is, as the others said, a compact double. Unfortunately, most of the major manufacturers are lagging behind in that category, so if you want one, look towards FSA or the like. I think they’re actually pretty cheap, too.[/quote]
Truvativ is selling a lot of their cranks in Road / Compact / Cross setups. Not necessarily cross specific (although what would be in a crank… its a crank…)