Use whatever crank length feels the best and gets one into the optimal position. Leverage is meaningless. It is true that changing crank length independently can increase or decrease the amount of force being applied to the drivetrain, but the constraining factor in 99.999% of all cases is power and power don’t care how long your cranks are if you’re in the range of cadence that’s feasible. Lots and lots of folks have studied this and after some period of adjustment, nearly everyone produces nearly the same power across any reasonable crank length.
Pretty sure Mike Burrows did a lot of this testing. He was the dude that designed the Lotus bike and eventually become a 'bent nerd and cared very much about crank length because on a 'bent with a fairing, the need to have very long cranks increases the cross-sectional area of the thing which is a Very Bad Thing if one is concerned about aero.
Cool thing about shorter cranks for road bikes is that they generally permit a more aero position. As Braden pointed out, hip impingement can often be a limiting factor in many bike fits. A shorter crank can allow the rider to get longer and lower with less hip impingement. They’re also lower on the bike by some small degree, i.e. lower saddle height and all, which makes for better aero.
Shorter cranks is a higher saddle. A full cm drop in crank length gets you a 1cm saddle height adjustment and 2cm less knee height for the same leg extension at the bottom of the pedal stroke.
True, presuming nothing else changes. If the constraint is hip impingement, then shorter cranks can make for a lower saddle height. Fore and aft adjustment can be made to account for leg extension.
If you you are worried about ripping out the mounts from your fork, you could try these. Not that they are currently available. But I suspect the model is online in a 3d printing repo somewhere. I used them on the Tour Te Waipounamu, and one day the whole weight of my fully loaded bike pivoted on my waterbottle as I was blithering through some hike-a-bike. It tore down the middle of the mount, so it actually worked as a sacraficial link, which was not actually why I installed it, it was zip-tied on to my suspension fork.
FYI. We had drinks last night with a neighbour. His brother Andy makes these harnesses. Apparently he had been mulling over the idea over years of touring around the world, but it only took him a couple of weeks to make it happen. Probably helped that the neighbour is some kind of product designer. Wayward Riders Louise Dropper Post Harness
I have no idea what any of my body measurements are and I have no desire to dive into this rabbit hole. I’m 90% certain my cranks are 175mm, and they turn so I’m good to go.
no you should spend ten years totally convinced that one crackpot theory about bike fit is right, wind up with a ton of joint problems, and then subscribe to another crackpot theory that you stick with to the grave.
you know, the normal way to do bike stuff.
I was going to say maybe try using aluminum screws for mounting the cages. Problem is of course you’ll want to check them yearly or after any impact, and carry a couple of replacements.
Doesn’t feel very good looking around. They’ve got a bunch of fake chains listed. Could go either way - they’re a US based warehousing for grey market Shimano stuff that was hanging around in China for the past several months. Or they’re a scam site to steal your money and info without delivering anything
Which makes this next bit funny
One of my go-to Aliexpress Shimano resellers has that group for a little less but shipping is probably 2-3 weeks right now.
Oh and here’s another weird thing - all the Aliexpress Shimano groupsets I’ve seen are legitimate - except the chains. Full R8000 group with a fake chain, M7100 group with a fake chain. I can think of reasons why but it’s still odd.
Like you’ve seen somebody complete an order and the cassette, dangler, and shifter were all legit? I guess I understand that faking the chain is probably the easiest and highest margin item to fake and most buyers probably won’t notice until it’s too late. They also must be interested in avoiding penalization by Alibaba otherwise they’d just throw some Shimendo parts in the box.
I’ve bought a bit myself. I researched this a ton, and as far as I can tell the Shimano stuff on Aliexpress (w/exception of chains) is almost entirely legitimate product that was backlog from MY2022/23 orders that got canceled or modified.
Chinese duplication is very good but until mid-2022 none of this stuff was available on the platform and they’re not good enough to duplicate the full range from Sora-Ultegra/GRX + Alivio-SLX and release it all at once. Pretty much overnight everything but Dura-Ace was for sale.
The bike boom also shook out a lot of NOS inventory like 4400 shifters, Octalink cranksets, and other junk that some broker tracked down when anything bike related was selling immediately. Aliexpress is like eBay and FB marketplace - it won’t show you everything if it doesn’t recognize your interests. There’s a ton of weird stuff out there now.
You just missed Biketiresdirect having a 20% off sale. Had GRX RX600 for $100 - probably have another sale next month.
For whatever reason, the GRX stuff isn’t a good deal on Aliexpress. Cranks are as expensive and the full group is only like a hundred bucks cheaper. R8000 groupset was like $400 cheaper.
The off-brand stuff like iFix is all MTB q-factor but I’m not super familiar.
Maybe it’s time for my own thread: “Iwillbe overthinks things”, but what’s the state of the art on grease vs no grease shifter cables?
I’m getting sort of draggy shifting on a few bikes, and I have some Shimano Dura Ace grease on the way, and some Finish Line Extreme Flouro here already.
A. no grease on cables / in cable housings
B. grease the whole thing
C. no grease polymer coated cables, grease bare steel
D. grease the shifter housing inner on the back of the bike, but not the run off the shifters to the DT.
E. Fuck it, blast Tri-Flow in / on / around everything, hail Satan
I feel like the conventional wisdom has drifted back and forth on this over the years, leaving me not sure on what’s best.
