Re: [CR]Crank length, today and yesterday

(Example: Framebuilders:Alex Singer)

From: <ABikie@aol.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 23:18:51 EDT
Subject: Re: [CR]Crank length, today and yesterday
To: Wdgadd@aol.com, Huemax@aol.com, CaptBike@sheldonbrown.com, LouDeeter@aol.com, classicrendezvous@bikelist.org


In a message dated 9/20/2001 10:51:24 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Wdgadd@aol.com writes:

<< I'm reminded of a man I met in about 1975 at a shop called the Broken Spoke in Dover Point, NH, named James Farnsworth. He advocated what he called "full throw cycling" which essentially meant using extremely long cranks, huge rings, and a lowish cadence. He had a custom chrome Schwinn Paramount with a very high bracket to suit the long cranks, which were T.A. 180's with machined bolt on block extensions giving perhaps 4 or 5 cm. more length. The largest of the triple T.A. rings was at least a 65 or 70. The bike had some rather weird and rather crude modified components, like the SunTour GT rear changer that had it's cage lengthened by cutting and brazing in a Mafac wrench! He let me try the bike (with my wheels) and any impressions I had are lost in time, even if they had not been hopelessly colored by teenage enthusiasm. I wonder how he talked Schwinn into building this for him? Does anyone else remember this guy? By the way, I use 170's and one set of 172.5's on 60 cm c to c frames. I'm thinking of going shorter for fixed gear, say 165's(don't think 167.5's would make much difference).

Best Regards, Wes Gadd _________________Somewhere I have the article from bikeWorld or Buycycling advocating normalish folk get cranks in the 180-220 range. I'm a shorter crank advocate, but splitting hairs of 2-5mmis not worth getting into.

Leverage, claim some, can be gained through longer cranks, In a system coompsed of many factors like chainwhel size, wheel diameter, and rear sprocket size, there are other factors affecting leverage

In a low resistance situation - track and rollers, short cranks are a big advantage. In fact, roller rules prohibit cranks shorter than 160 I use these in my roller championship attempts and squeeze evey morsel of gear i can I sneak a 51t chainwheel on and use a lower profile #3 track silk to keep the gear development within the rollout.

Just some FYI

Hope to see y'all at the swap and ride

Of course all of us hard workers will miss Harvey's 'crack o' dawn' start at 3:30 since it will take at least an hour to pack up the show

How about a vintage section at the official ride Sunday

Larry Black