I’m curious what you guys think of Nashbar branded components? They are one of the few companies I’ve never ordered from.
I’m intrigued to experiment with a compact crankset, but don’t want to spend $300+ on FSAs. Nashbar has their own branded set for $79 that is 50g heavier than the Ritchy’s and is 60g lighter than the FSAs. I don’t believe these weight differences account for anything, but I am wondering what the quality of their components tends to be like? I’m not ultra cheap, but if I can save $100-$200 for my experiement, then I’m all over it.
I put one on my new road bike several months ago. It works great and I like the way it looks with my frame. I noticed that the crnks are slightly curved around the chainrings. I’ve been debating whether or not to put compacts on my tri bike.
YMMV. I thought it was a bargain too so I bought these with the Nashbar Isis bottom bracket. The bottom bracket lasted one month. I switched to a different Isis bottom bracket. After another month the crank is loose when the bolts are as tight as possible. I switched to Ritchey WCS compact cranks along with the Shimano Octalink.
At this point, I have used the Nashbar Compact Cranks for a year at 10,000K. I have had some quick bike splits on them and I have had no issues with the ISIS BB. Then again, I am only 140 lbs. I would recommend getting a Race Face ISIS 108 mm BB to go with these as any wider BB really moves the feet apart too far.
Have been using the Nashbar compact cranks with the Nashbar ISIS bottom bracket for about five months now and haven’t had any issues with either. I believe it was in this forum that someone mentioned that FSA is the actual maker of these cranks.
They look like the FSA Grossmear (sp?) cranks and the chainrings are identical. In fact, I “downgraded” and took the 50 tooth Nashbar off and put on a 48 tooth FSA and I could not tell the difference between the two rings (aside from pretending that I am big chainring stud).