Ashtabula cranks, was Re: [CR]1962 Chrome Superior photos

(Example: Events:Cirque du Cyclisme:2002)

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 20:48:56 -0400
From: "Harvey M Sachs" <sachshm@cox.net>
To: Classic Rendezvous <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>, fred_rednor@yahoo.com
Subject: Ashtabula cranks, was Re: [CR]1962 Chrome Superior photos


Fred Rednor asked:

FRED: Out of curiosity, has anyone weighed one of those Astabula style cranks that Schwinn used on their high quality bikes? I 'd be curious to know how they compared to a Stronglight 3 piece crankset. HARVEY: I can do the measurements, but haven't. As a thought experiment, recall that the Ashtabula arms are steel, while the Stronglights are aluminum. The only steel crank arms I ever weighted that were close to aluminum were the hollow Duprat 5-pin, compared to TA 5-pin.

FRED: Also, are those steel or aluminum chainrings? HARVEY: The lovely Superior has, I believe, steel rings, but uses a "spider" that probably would have mounted the Simplex aluminum cogs. I once did a conversion of a 5-arm Ashtabula to aluminum rings, but never saw a factory installation like that.

harvey sachs
mcLean va usa.