Greg17815 wrote:
Are there other options for cranks around 145-150 mm other than Bikesmith?
I’m a bit under 6’5” with 37.5” inseam, but longer in the lower legs than femurs proportionally speaking, as well as having less than good hip flexion range of motion (work in progress). I had been using 175s for 20+ years both road and tri until last year when I moved down to 170 and 172.5. I realized that I had been positioned way too high, in large part to help open up my hip angle but at a cost to back pain, lateral hip movement, pedal smoothness, etc.
Now I’m around 3 cm lower than I was previously, with respect to pedal at the bottom of the stroke, and I switched to 165s just recently. It’s an improvement but with the saddle height 3 cm lower, my hip flexion at the top of the stroke is still troublesome for my range of motion. Some hip rocking because of that. So I’m thinking 145s or 150s would be better, at least for now.
Jcob makes 145, 150, 155 short cranks but they're not cheap. They do have some 160s/165s on sale for $195.
Short Cranksets – Speed&Comfort (speedandcomfort.com) Might be good to try the midfoot cleat adapters as Iverma mentions, I did that as well and found it does indeed help top of stroke and it feels like more powerful strokes using more quads instead of calves. Only negative I can tell is not quite as much power when standing on the cranks for steep climbs.
Further, I think midfoot or slammed back cleats makes sense for shorter cranks because otherwise the knee will extend beyond the toes in forward rotation (3-o'clock pedal position) I was having knee pain because of this with the short cranks, so I got the Patro adapters and effectively moved my foot forward by the same amount I shortened the cranks and voila it fixed the knee pain.
Solutions for foot pain, hot spots, metatarsalgia and mortons neuroma. – Mid-Foot Cycling (mid-foot-cycling.com)