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me about 5'9 ride medium 54 road and cross bike and 16 inch scandal, just realised i have 172.5 on the road 170 on the crosser and 175 on the mtb, do folks tend to use the same length on all their bikes, does it make much difference?
I couldn't even tell when the 2 cranks on the same bike were different lengths
6'4 180mm. I can tell the difference between 175 and 180. It's ****in huge.
6'3" and I use 175's on my MTB and 172.5's on my commuter and road bike.
ive got 175 on mtb and road bike and 170 on the cx and i can tell
175s on everything and never noticed any difference, regardless of having had 165s
so should shorter folks use shorter cranks as a general rule, or is it etter to just use the same lenght on everything
6ft tall and can't really feel any diffo between 170, 172.5 and 175.
Definitely noticed the difference between 175 and 170 on my last 2 bikes, just didn't seem to have enough leverage an the 170's
Shorter cranks are easier to be spinnier on. Science fact that is. I find the effect pretty marginal. I use 175 on MTBs where the leverage comes in handy, espec the SS, and 172.5 on the road, which I find more comfy to keep at higher revs. I have 175 on my road commuter though, and it isn't vastly different.
I'm 5'10" with long legs for my height.
170 on road and full sus, 175 on SS.
EDIT: i'm 5'9"
just went from 175 to 170
WOW can I tell the difference!:cry:
hope my legs get stronger soon though....
180mm MTB, 175 road. 6"4'. I do like the 180s, very "cranky". 🙂
170mm on singlespeed ( not my first choice)
175mm on geared full suss.
172.5mm road bike.
180mm on both bmxs.
165mm on raleigh bomber.and they suck!
165's on my road bike, trying some new 165's now on my mtb to see if it helps with my knee problems
BTW, I'm only 5' tall so have somewhat short legs ...
6ft4
180mm DH Bike (Gets the weight really low down through corners and great punch out of them)
175mm Trail Bike (When I finally rebuild one)
175mm Road Bike
5'10" with shortish legs
175 on the ss
172.5 on the road ss and the full sus
170 on the hardtail, but only coz they were uber cheap.
I find the 172s to be most comfy.
5ft11 with 33" inside leg here, yet use 170mm cranks on all my bikes... Why? I used to suffer badly with knee pains, and was told using slightly shorter cranks would help this. Also, shorter cranks are easier to spin on (and I used to be crap at spinning, something I'm now loads better at) and you get marginally better pedal/ground clearance.
Yes, you do get approx 3% less leverage compared to the 175mm convention, but I'm more than happy to trade this off (christ, MTB's have a 22/32 bottom gear mostly anyway!) for the benefits they give me, despite my relatively long legs for my height.
165's now on my mtb to see if it helps with my knee problems
Do you mind me asking where you got them from, and what model they are? My GF is 4'10" and I could opnly source 170's, I'd really like to get her some 165mm MTB cranks if I can, she only has lil legs.
5'7" with relatively short legs:
All bikes:
road geared x2
road fixed
MTB geared and SS
Track*
are 170mm. Happy not to change.
*Naughty, I know 😳
170 road and 175 everything else. I can tell the differecnce.
Try Middleburn for 165mm cranks.
5' 10", 172.5 on the road bikes and 175 on the MTB's
I can defo tell the difference, but I think some of that is the crank length and some will be the Q factor. As I do 90% of riding on the road it takes a few miles to get use to spinning on an MTB again. Change is good though 😉
I've switched to 170mm on all bikes.
I felt less powerful for a few weeks but got past it, I get less knee pain now.
I'm 5'9"
Shimano XT come in 165mm anotherdeadhero. In stock at Merlin Cycles too according to their website.
you can get XT in 165
I've 165 or 175 on MTBs, currently 172.5 on road bike but used to have 180s on it
Can't see that they make an important difference really (tiny effect on the effort in a given gear) other than not striking rocks with the short ones
moved from 170 to 165 due to short legs. Difference feels massive. But surely it should. Imagine putting your seatpost up or down by 1/2 cm. If mine's a few mms out, I can feel the difference.
anotherdeadhero,
try Chicken Cycles (formerly RJ Chicken) they have some shorter cranks
Ace, ta all.
165 on the Track Bike
170 on the CX
175 on the FS
31' inside leg
Shorter cranks on the Track for banks and higher spin rate. Longer the FS, as the revs are in the 70s (generally)
Misses has XT 165 as she is short too
6' 1" ish with 34" inside legs
175 HT, Road, Cross and BMX
170 FS and Track
I can tell the difference, I had 165s on the track bike and had to change, they felt so cramped.
Similar here.
165 on the track bike (I'd be worried with anything longer)
And then all my other bikes vary between 170 and 175. I can notice the difference on singlespeeded bikes but not so much on geared bikes.
175 on all bikes (I think) (rigid commuter/MTB, HT, FS, Play(Jump/4X) bike) but simply because that was what they came with or that was cheapest/seemed like the one to go for)
I'd like to try some others though. 180s on the FS sounds appealing for the corner dropping and most of the pedalling tends to be lower revs uphill or the odd couple of strokes on a DH anyway. Would lose 5mm of clearance though ..
I'd also get to drop the saddle by 5mm as well. Hmm
Maybe I [b][i]need[/i][/b] 170s to help me spinning properly as I seem to have lost the ability to do so ..
According to [url= http://www.machinehead-software.co.uk/bike/cranks/cyclist_crank_length_calculator.html ]this online optimum crank length calculator[/url] I need a 173mm crank (for 34" inside leg). I'm not sure what type of riding this 'optimum' is based around though
Oddly [url= http://www.tallcyclist.com/crank-length-calculator/ ]this one says I need 181mm cranks[/url]
I'm six feet and take 32 leg length jeans, and use 170 cranks on all my bikes.
For the people with knee problems, the relative length of your thigh and shin compared to one another might be a more important factor though than overall leg length, perhaps if you have long thighs and short shins shorter cranks could be kinder to knees? There must be some info on the web about it.
Tim
Oops, I take 34 leg length jeans.
5'9 and I have 170mm on my road bike and mtb, and 172.5 on my commuter which is also a road bike, and I can't tell the difference. Even when I ride home and swap from the commuter to the mtb for a run out I can't tell the difference 😳
175mm on Road Bike
175mm on Commuter Bike
175mm on FS
170mm on HT, got them cos they were in the sale @ CRC last year, can kinda tell the difference but not massivley