I don't think anyone pegged his success to the cranks. I think it's the opposite, he's just shown the world they're a valid option...
Short Crank Curious…
- Thread starter rideit
- Start date
So again it's a matter of the idiocy of measuring stuff in arbitrary, not related units and subunits, and not a matter of average height...You're right! I will say that I am 5 feet 8 57⁄64 inches now.
175cm on my passport.
How NASA Lost Its Mars Climate Orbiter From a Metric Error (simscale.com)
MOAR agile too.
It's nothing to be ashamed of... I wished I was shorter my entire childhood due to my two best mates being midgets and getting away with everything despite both being almost a year older than me. Adults tended to brush off their bad behaviour and blame the taller kid in the group.
That did have its benefits later tho. I reached my current height before I hit 15 so always got served alcohol no probs while they both got ID'd everywhere right into their late 20s. I also attracted away moar older girls.
Swings n roundabouts init?
TBF. It doesn't take a genius to understand the relationship between gearing and power.
Some fannies will undoubtedly purchase shorter cranks now they've read about them winning. In the same way everyone tried to up their average cadence climbing in the Lance era. Many still won't actually understand why.
At 6'2" with long legs I think a 175 barely fits me for XC racing and road riding. Anyone with legs even a little shorter I've told to not use 175. So for 5'9" with average legs 165 or 167.5 seems right for road. For decades I thought it was weird that my legs are in like the 98th percentile, my seat height towers above pretty much every other bike I see, but most riders use the same crank length.
"No loss of power or torque just higher cadence, even tall guys like cartho agee"
What I find easier to believe is that people are adaptable and can adapt with no or minimal impact. It doesn't mean a shorter arm gives the same torque. Similar how people adapt to different gear ranges. They tend to vastly underestimate this effect IME, blaming their gear ratio rather than their fitness, but when conditioned for 1x1 or 32x42, you don't notice it and you adapt just fine. So within a range, Im sure we are adaptable with little to no hit. I think this compliments cadence too, since most people that are aware realize you want to be 90-100 as much of the time as possible.
I raced the 2nd half of my XC series on my "shorter cranks", as well as the training/fun rides in between. I did well, moving up to 6th in the final race. Not my best "standing" by numbers, but by competition in the final race, I was happy. The biggest differences, by far, were not hitting the pedals on stuff and being able to lean the bike much further over w/o pedal/crank interference. It also made the bike a lot funner. This makes more difference on aggressive singletrack and I was able to pedal more on the singletrack. Its a small effect overall tho, because you aren't gaining but a few seconds between racers and its relatively meaningless when you come to a climb, but it helps you keep the pressure on someone at their limit and forces them to over-exert or make a mistake if you work it right. The whole "level pedals in descend and turning" largely goes out the window when racing like this IME, you try to keep level when and where you can, but you are trying to fit in pedaling wherever you can at the same time.
I had shorter on the enduro bike for much longer, but the xc race bike was a bigger difference in how I could lean the bike over w/the shorter ones. In general its more nimble and maneuverable, so maybe thats part of it.
I raced the 2nd half of my XC series on my "shorter cranks", as well as the training/fun rides in between. I did well, moving up to 6th in the final race. Not my best "standing" by numbers, but by competition in the final race, I was happy. The biggest differences, by far, were not hitting the pedals on stuff and being able to lean the bike much further over w/o pedal/crank interference. It also made the bike a lot funner. This makes more difference on aggressive singletrack and I was able to pedal more on the singletrack. Its a small effect overall tho, because you aren't gaining but a few seconds between racers and its relatively meaningless when you come to a climb, but it helps you keep the pressure on someone at their limit and forces them to over-exert or make a mistake if you work it right. The whole "level pedals in descend and turning" largely goes out the window when racing like this IME, you try to keep level when and where you can, but you are trying to fit in pedaling wherever you can at the same time.
I had shorter on the enduro bike for much longer, but the xc race bike was a bigger difference in how I could lean the bike over w/the shorter ones. In general its more nimble and maneuverable, so maybe thats part of it.
