The Advantages of Shorter Crank Arms.

I’ve been talking to quite a few of our riders lately regarding shorter crank arms as it seems we’ve been sending out a lot more 170mm arms . As for myself, over the past seven years, I’ve slowly moved from 180mm down to 160mm arms. It wasn’t a quick jump, over a couple years I dropped down 5mm increments until I found myself settled at 160mm.

Yesterday, I took a trip (about a 30 foot walk) into our machine shop to discuss the technical/physical properties of shorter arms. Bottom line: a shorter crank arm is much more stiff and less liable to bend.

Beyond the physical properties, I wanted to grab some personal preference/insight from some of our guys:

“The reason I run short crank arms is mostly because I love the extra clearance it’s gives my feet. When you run 4 pegs it’s easy to hook your back foot on your peg. Since I’ve switched to short arms (165mm) this hasn’t been a problem.”

-Jeff K.

“Reason one: Shorter cranks make it easier to clear my opposite rear peg with my huge feet.
Reason two: Makes spinning a little easier/more stable because you are closer to the bottom bracket.
Reason three: There is less leverage so they are less likely to bend and break.”

-Grant Castelluzzo

We continue to make crank arms starting at 145mm and ending at 190mm. For a complete list of sizes click here:

-Matt