Even at 5’-5" she was not comfortable riding 172.5’s and switched to 175’s. Sure, cross is a different type of riding, but the “justification” is the same thing I’ve always heard even if other nay-sayers think longer = evil.
Call me old school (both in my approach to fitting and in parts selection), but I love to see people running longer cranks. I’d run 180’s on my TT bikes and 175’s on my road ones.
What are you trying to prove? that you cant understand that theres a large range of crank lengths that athletes can use without sacrificing power, or shorter cranks have their place in time trial fitting applications for torso clearance?
On a road/cx bike you have the ability to compress/expand your arms to adjust your hip angle. On a tt bike once you set down in the cups your hip angle is more or less fixed.
I don’t know how one can make an apples to apples comparison of road vs tt when taking this into consideration.
My hip angles are within 2 degrees or so on road(default hood position) vs tt. 175 road/160 tt. 6’1" and 34.5" inseam. The only reason for going so short was a comfort issue on the tt, not for power or any other reason.
I perfectly understand that bodies and positions vary. When you fit people, that is a critical aspect of getting one’s position correct. I did that for 5 years in my shop days with some very picky and strong local riders.
My point is that it is refreshing to see people defer to the longer length instead of what I’m constatntly seeing here that people are looking for 155 - 160 cranks that are 6’-4" (exaggeration but hoepfully you see my point) because they read in the world wide interweb that shorter is always better.
So let me understand this: shorter cranks allow tighter hip/body angle and more aero position, or at least a position that is tight enough but not causing issues when running…
So by this reasoning, no running off the bike, means tighter (more closed) hip angle?
How long are the cranks (and how many teeth on the front ring) are Cancellara and Martin using…when they go 50kph and don’t have to run afterwards? And I think both are relatively big guys… 177.5? 180? 56t?
IIR, Cancellara is supposed to be super flexible and able to get into and keep a great, low aero position, for someone almost 2m tall…
What about Leipheimer? Almost as fast (look at results at USACC) and 15+cm shorter…but I would be surprised at anything shorter than standard.
Martin uses 177.5 length, and I think they use 53 tooth chainrings. Contador uses 175’s. I think Cancellara uses 177.5’s too. Its funny, Andy Pruitt worked with Cancellara and ‘raised’ him, the Euro belief is lower is better but thats false. I like to tell people to go to shorter cranks, especially if I race them, I just get more time on them so they can ‘attempt’ to run me down:)
The point is that theres not a lot of harm setting ANYONE up on a 160mm crank.
Other than that they may be sacrificing some power/leverage and forced into a high cadence riding style which may not inherently suit them.
It is not just all about angles. They are important obviously, but you have to look at riding style, relative comfort and power generation.
And anyone who knows anything about triathlon performance knows that the ability to run off the bike is more influenced by how hard you push ON the bike then whether or not you have the aeroly-perfect or comfortable position. Sure, it does matter some. But if you have a perfect and comfortable position and go over a certain percentage of effort you are still going to blow it on the run.
Martin uses 177.5 length, and I think they use 53 tooth chainrings. Contador uses 175’s.** I think Cancellara uses 177.5’s too. Its funny, Andy Pruitt worked with Cancellara and ‘raised’ him**, the Euro belief is lower is better but thats false. I like to tell people to go to shorter cranks, especially if I race them, I just get more time on them so they can ‘attempt’ to run me down:)
Hmmm…I wonder if those 2 items are related somehow??
Even at 5’-5" she was not comfortable riding 172.5’s and switched to 175’s. Sure, cross is a different type of riding, but the “justification” is the same thing I’ve always heard even if other nay-sayers think longer = evil.
Call me old school (both in my approach to fitting and in parts selection), but I love to see people running longer cranks. I’d run 180’s on my TT bikes and 175’s on my road ones.
Great to see pros that have a similar mindset.
Ummm, yeah…because an aerodynamic position is a KEY requirement of CX racing :-/
BTW, I’ll bet she didn’t change her saddle and bar fore/aft position when she went from 175s to 172.5, which is probably why it felt “off” to her…
edit: Oh yeah…it doesn’t sound like they realize it, but part of the reason she’s so far forward on the bike (as evidenced by the need to use a zero offset seat post and a 120mm long stem on a small bike) is that she’s running the 175s. If she went to 170s, or even 165s, then her saddle could be moved back the difference in the lengths and the stem shortened, with the added bonus of making her weight more “centered” between the wheels. All of this is predicated on appropriately changing the gearing to compensate for the different crank lengths…but, that should be a given (even though it doesn’t sound like they considered that either).
