I am trying to decide what cranks to put on a new bike. I have thought about FSA Carbon cranks, but I am not sure if I will notice any real difference over Ultegra or Dura-Ace. Other than the cost. Has anybody ridden with both to offer any “real advice”
Let me answer your question with a few questions…
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Are you at 10% or less body fat?
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Can you feel a “normal” crankest deflect under the pressure of your mammoth power and pedal stroke?
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Are you willing to accept the less that perfect shifting that you will get with “non-standard” chainrings?
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Do you really like to impress people with your equipment?
(Note: I did just order the new Campy Record Carbon crankset for one of my bikes…all show baby, all show)
check this out
Doesn’t that crank cost around $750? Ouch. I thought I was nuts about spending money on equipment.
Tom D. has demonstrated that there is little if any performance difference between cranks. That being said, I have FSA carbon cranks and their aerodynamic Lenticular TT Chain Rings. 
These look slick as hell and shift like a dream. If you prefer silver, then the Shimano Team Issue Dura-Ace cranks with their SuperRings look very nice also.
How the heck do you decide which one to ride!! Nice problem to have, I’ll bet.
I ditched the FSA 54t aero ring I bought, it weighs freaking 255+ gms !!!
Holy xxxx !!!
Do you know how much the Shimano SuperRings weigh?
I was at a bike swap meet type of deal and trying to decide whether to go with the DA or FSA myself. I was talking with my friend about the pros/cons as they were only 15.00 apart in price. A LBS employee heard us and stated, " Dude, go with the FSA. I tested them on my bike and they are so much stiffer than DA." Many people think like this and I believed at that time the FSA may be stiffer but after riding DA in the past didn’t think it would be anything a human could quatify by riding alone. Then the bikesportmichigan article came out . . . and when I finally get my “slam” bike built up Ultegra all the way baby.
I appreciate everyoone’s input. I was very concerned that the cost would not be justified in buying a carbon crank. I had seen the article by Tom some time ago, but couldn’t remember the conclusions or where to find it. Thanks for the link. Yall have confirmed what I had almsot decided on my own and that is to save the money for something else like wheels. Once again thanks
Look, I hate to burst everybody’s bubble, but the test methodology used in the bikesport crank test is so flawed it’s practically worthless. There, I said it.
Tom was good enough to post an addendum to the test outlining one of my problems with the test, 'cause he is an honest, well meaning guy who is really trying to get good info out there. The problem is bad methodology=bad data=useless test= people drawing conclusions about products that have no basis in reality.
I have seen better (or at least differently) designed tests on the same products that came up with markedly different results.
What does this mean? It means that you can’t take somebody’s word for something, and you can’t take test results on face value.
To me, this seems very much analagous to the discussions about biomechanics that go down on this board quite frequently: unless you can read a whole study, and have enough info to critically analyze the way in which that study was conducted, it is a leap of faith to accept the results at face value - and in general, people here don’t. For some reason, though, when Tom or anyone else posts an obviously flawed analysis of a product, it doesn’t seem to be subject to the same intellectual rigor as certain other topics.
This is interesting to me.
Several months ago, someone posed a question regarding an ergogenic aid and it’s possible performance benefits. As I recall, The response to this enquiry was pretty overwhelmingly negative - never mind that this product has some pretty good peer-reviewed science behind it, or the fact that many pros are currently using it. The responses were overwhelmingly sceptical, even though most (if not all) of the respondants had never tried the product.
What’s up with this? Why are people willing to believe a test on cranks but not one on cadence, and that they can save more time in the bike leg by wearing an aero helmet than they can by intelligent ergogenic supplementation?
Just curious…
MH
well i do not know what an " ergonuetronisticogenic suppleceuticalplemnetation" is, but there is this:
the fsa crank is a iffy use of carbon. not saying the thing isn’t a decent lever to bolt your chainrings to, but it is also fair to say the piece is as much show as go, from an engineering perspective. most simply, it is NOT a carbon crank at all. it is an aluminum spine section wrapped in foam and dressed in a ( to some) cool looking skin of carbon to add stiffness. a crank employing carbon’s attribute fully would be hollow. to me the fsa looks cheesey and trendy and most decidedly overdone - but that is me. i have a ritchey - it has a rounded i-beam cross section. good stuff, cheap, cold forged, simple, light and stiff in plenty measure. whatever.
Interesting point on the “from an engineering perspective.” Too bad you are so off base.
The internal aluminum substructure in the FSA style cranks is non-structural in the loadbearing mode of the crank. It serves 2 purposes 1) it is an alignment aid, or mandrel, and 2) (more importantly) it acts as a torsion rod to prevent the #1 modality of failure in carbon cranks, which is the “twisting” out of the threaded inserts in your much vaunted hollow carbon cranks (all of which have have had a near 100% rate of eventual failure, by the way. How many Zipp cranks do you see around these days?)
The foam is there to insulate the outer layer of carbon fiber (there are 2, by the way) from galvanic corrosion, and to fill dead/hollow space with a less dense material (a quite common and accepted practice in composite engineering.)
The structural/loadbearing element of these cranks is entirely carbon. You can bend the aluminum spline in half with your bare hands.
Ergogenic is in the dictionary.
FSA, by the way, manufactures the Ritchey cranks and chainrings, and yes, they are quite nice.
MH
yah, OK, fredly. i did not say 100% carbon cranks were better, or even worth the packaging they are in. i said they are/were a more appropriate use of carbon. the bits about the internal spine could be true, or could as easily be partially true. one could as easily say it is a way to quickly and cheaply make a crank that costs more, and is about as heavy as, and about as stiff as an aluminum one out of fancier looking materials in hopes to capitalize on market infatuation of said material.
the consumer can be the judge. i will stand by my comments and do not think they are off base at all.
oh, and i love your patronizing too, BTW. i SAID the carbon was to add stiffness, and i never claimed the aluminum spine was the load bearer in the structure, etc. save the pomposity for somebody who is impressed by it.
all i said about engineering was that from that view the crank is as much show as go. -let’s see - extraneous use of exotic materials to acheive an end result more or less equivalent o existing technology. what, again, is off base about that ??
give me a break.
125g=54t
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“I hate to burst everybody’s bubble…”
You’re not bursting mine. I would at least like to have seen a force applied a few inches off centre from the crank centerline (as in typical pedal force), with appropriate measurements in appropriate places for both linear deflection and for twist. I suspect these arms are all strong in the direction of their long cross-section (the direction Tom measured), but can have significant variation in resistance to torque around their axes (because they are much thinner side to side). Experimenting with pedal-induced Q factor would be interesting as well.
But Tom’s not doing too badly for a bike shop… at least he’s trying to gather some facts instead of being content to wallow in misinformation. He measured, and he documented what he measured (it was clear to me, anyway). I commend him for that, and think others can stand on the shoulders of his work for the next round of measurements.
You mentioned seeing other test data… do you have links?
You nailed 2 of the problems with the test. Another big one was the failure to include any measurement of spider deflection.
I’m 100% with you on the kudos due Tom. If other bike shops go the extra mile, he goes 10k.
I would love to show you the test results, but they were all stuff that I saw when I was working for a component manufacturer that did a LOT of in house testing. At one time I had a great collection of broken component pictures on my desktop, along with fatigue cycle numbers. It was pretty scary.
MH
If you read my reply as patronizing, so be it. I don’t have tremendous patience for posts that make bold statements with no facts to back them up, or worse, claim facts in evidence that are blatantly false. If you say something is manufactured in a certain way, because of a certain reason, you have an obligation to at least get some of what you say right. If you are wrong, you should expect to get called on your BS. I have been on the receiving end when I got stuff wrong, and it’s tough to suck it up and take it. Following up with a post that says “I didn’t say that” doesn’t work very well when the original is still there for everyone to see.
If you had originally said:
“the crank is as much show as go. -let’s see - extraneous use of exotic materials to acheive an end result more or less equivalent o existing technology…”
I would have responded differently, but you didn’t say that. You made unfounded and demonstrably incorrect statements regarding a product you clearly know very little about. That’s not patronizing, that’s the truth. Sorry.
And “ergogenic” IS in the dictionary :0)
MH
what in the H are you talking about fredly? “bold statement” ?? "unfounded and demonstrably incorrect. . . . " what again ?? are you miffed because i didn’t call the spine a “mandrel” ?? i made an accurate description of the thing, and offered a few views on it. it is NOT a carbon crank - it is a spine covered in foam wrapped in a skin. it costs a lot more, and offers little more, if anything, compared to conventional cranks. it is a product clearly hoping to capitalize on a market infatuation with a material - one could say it would not even exist without this market preoccupation, given its limited benfit over the prevailing norm. i made no bold anything nor any threw any BS whatsoever. what in the hell is your problem ?