[Randon] White Industries VBC Road Crankset

[Jeffrey Moore]

I've been eyeing up this set of cranks for a while. There are some qualities I particularly like about these cranks:

1.) Fantastic range of inner/outer chain rings offered

2) low Q factor

3) Super stylish 

I have looked endless on the internet and have found very few reviews of these cranks. Anyone out there use them and/or have an opinion to share which might sway me one way or the other about purchasing this crankset? 

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[Dark Horse]

I'm getting bad flashbacks to Cook Bros and Sweet Wings.

Way too many dedicated little bits in there for me. Those rings and
bolts are going to be special-order only at any bike shop I've ever
heard of. And, of course, you're stuck with their rings and only their
rings.

Chainring spacers and splined chainrings were once quite common in
the aftermarket. They had a distressing tendency to creak, work loose,
and abandon ship. I have a deep and abiding distrust of dedicated
parts that are not common or widely distributed. Imagine losing a ring
bolt out in the deep dark.

Colored parts look like hell when the color starts coming off. Note
the unlamented demise of 3DViolet.

On May 20, 5:00 pm, Jeffrey Moore <jeffreymichaelmo...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I've been eyeing up this set of cranks for a while. There are some qualities
> I particularly like about these cranks:
>
> 1.) Fantastic range of inner/outer chain rings offered
> 2) low Q factor
> 3) Super stylish
>
> I have looked endless on the internet and have found very few reviews of
> these cranks. Anyone out there use them and/or have an opinion to share
> which might sway me one way or the other about purchasing this crankset?

Dark Horse

[jake Kassen]

On 5/20/10 11:17 PM, Dark Horse wrote:
> I'm getting bad flashbacks to Cook Bros and Sweet Wings.
>
> Way too many dedicated little bits in there for me. Those rings and
> bolts are going to be special-order only at any bike shop I've ever
> heard of. And, of course, you're stuck with their rings and only their
> rings.
>

Agreed. White Industries has a nasty habit of taking a good idea and
wrecking it with the need for custom parts only they make. It's the
solution in search of a problem mentality.

I'm looking at getting one of their ENO hubs right now -- it's a great
idea and by all reports a well made hub. But some reason they decided to
discontinue normal cog threading and now it's only usable with
proprietary cogs you can only buy from them at a markup. Yuck!

From the look of it their cranks are the same way -- offering some nice
features (low Q-factor, well machined, etc) but then screw things up by
requiring non-standard parts.

Jake

PS. I will say that if you *could* use standard chainrings for the inner
position it would give me something to do with all my strange rings in
BCDs other then 110/130. I seem to have a ton of odd ones....

[Ryan Golbeck]

I have these cranks and I love them so far. Though, I've only had
them for about half a year now.

It seems to me that only the outer chain ring is special order. It
looks to me like the inner chain ring mounts to the outter ring with
standard chain ring bolts (I haven't actually diassembled it yet to
verify, but I'm relatively sure I could mount anything as the inner
ring to this).

So although some of the parts here are non-standard, it'd be pretty
easy to get a replacement spare bit for mounting rings to the outer
ring if you were really that worried about losing one.

Yeah, I had to special order this stuff from the bike shop, but I
don't go through chain rings enough for this to be a problem having to
order a new outer chain ring in the future. The flexibility in
choosing exactly the gearing I want is worth it. I was a little
worried at first about shifting performance with weird ring sizes and
my veloce derailer, but it shifts fine. I'm using a 30T inner and 46T
outer.

I'm not sure what the comment about coloured parts is referring to.
The crank arms are a nice shiny silver, and the rings black. Mine are
dirty right now, but look just fine.

-ryan

[Dark Horse]

That was the one thing they made that I actually liked.
Were I you, I'd get one on Ebeast.

>
> I'm looking at getting one of their ENO hubs right now -- it's a great
> idea and by all reports a well made hub. But some reason they decided to
> discontinue normal cog threading and now it's only usable with
> proprietary cogs you can only buy from them at a markup. Yuck!
>

Dark Horse

[WillemJ]

You may also look at the less exotic forthcoming Velo Orange Grand Cru
cranks. They are an updated version of the venerable TA Pro 5 Vis, and
come with 46-30 rings. More ring sizes have been promised, and you can
also use the original TA rings for something like 42-26, if that is
why you were looking into the White Industries cranks.
Willem

[JBilinski]

WillemJ wrote:
> You may also look at the less exotic forthcoming Velo Orange Grand Cru
> cranks. They are an updated version of the venerable TA Pro 5 Vis, and
> come with 46-30 rings.

Other option are the Rotor Agilis XC2, Rotor Agilis XC2 3G, and Rotor 3D
XC2. These all have integrated bottom brackets and use outboard
bearings. They use 1 110mm chainring and 1 74mm chainring both of which
are widely available. Like the old Mavic 631 starfish crankset the large
chainring is held on from the outside.

Jacques Bilinski