I’m looking at a set of cranks for a touring bike. My road bikes are running
172.5mm cranks, MTB run 175mm & road fixed/single speed run 170mm.
The cranks I’m looking at only come in 170 & 175mm.
Should I go for shorter cranks and easy spinning or longer cranks for better leverage/climbing?
Does it really matter?
You probably won’t be able to tell the diff, I couldn’t between 170-175mm.
Spin vs leverage, won’t be a huge diff esp. if you’ve got a good spread of gears.
Another thing to consider is toe overlap.
Also Q-factor is something to think about, I’ve got a Deore Triple on my cross/touring bike at the mo, and being narrow hipped I don’t like them at the end of a long day (least I think thats part of the reason, hopefully some narrower cranks will help).
Conventional wisdom says a touring bike comes with lower BB for stability, plus if you’re using mudguards or front panniers toe overlap can be an issue. Go shorter.
If none of those apply then I dunno
Front pannier strike shouldn’t be an issue, but toe overlap once you have mudguards could be depending on the size of your bike, I have overlap on my Cx turned tourer and its a 54ish.
Never understood all the fuss about toe overlap, always had it in the olden days! I would be far more concerned about long cranks low bottom bracket, crank hit going around corners- not good.
I have a low BB on my bike and tow overlap, neither are really a problem.
However pedal strike is very easy to avoid when leaning into corners, but toe overlap is a little harder to avoid (but still easy) when doing a slow upright turn.
But you might as well try to avoid/minimise if you can, and trying to minimise one helps both!
Also a low Q-factor crank will help with pedal strike.