New Herse Crank (and BQ Spoiler Alert!)

[Brian Hanson]

I know this is a bit of a crossover, but I haven't seen it discussed yet.  Jan (Bicycle Quarterly) announced the crank they are working on:  http://janheine.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/rene-herse-cranks/

This looks like an ideal crank for my Hilsen now that I've tried and liked a compact'ish double.  Jan makes a good point about a triple arm being plenty strong, but it's certainly something I've not seen yet.  Has anyone used something like this from the "olden days"?

BTW - my BQ arrived yesterday - good stuff as usual.  An interesting comparison between tire size  showing basically no difference from a power required to maintain speed.  He talks about pressure making a far bigger difference in power required (lower is better to a point). 

Brian
Seattle, WA

[Mike]

I'm really excited about the RH crank, makes a nice alternative to the
VO crank. It seems like the RH crank is better thought out. I doubt
it'll happen but I'd love to see RH/Compass do a quality 6spd FW, it
would make for a great drivetrain. I'll most likely sell the VO crank
on my rando bike and replace it with this and an SKF BB. While the VO
crank has worked well enough it is flexy and aligning the FD, crankarm
and chain has required a certain amount of attention to detail that
doesn't look to be as much of an issue with the RH crank thanks to its
design.

I wish I had the new issue of BQ now as I have a long flight later
today.

--mike

[hobie]

Just curious. Who is making these cranksets for Herse,VO, Ird Defiant compact road etc.?

[William]

Those are pretty snazzy.  171mm arm length only?  Interesting choice.  That will either make both the 170mm and 172.5mm zealots happy....or neither.  

[Tim McNamara]

On Jul 8, 2011, at 11:54 AM, William wrote:

> Those are pretty snazzy. 171mm arm length only? Interesting choice. That will either make both the 170mm and 172.5mm zealots happy....or neither.

Nor the 6'4" guys who like 175-180 mm cranks. But what can you do, I'd bet the startup costs for something like this are formidable and prohibit jumping in with a range of lengths. 170s (or 171s) will fit most people just fine. Princess and the pea guys like me, maybe. I supose it'd be possible to forge the cranks long enough that the hole could be placed at 175 or 170 and just machine off a bot of the end for the shorter cranks, but that adds cost.

[Stuart Fletcher]

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 12:04, Tim McNamara <tim...@bitstream.net> wrote:
>
> ...

>  I supose it'd be possible to forge the cranks long enough that the hole could be placed at 175
> or 170 and just machine off a bot of the end for the shorter cranks, but that adds cost.
>

Compass/Rene Herse is specifically against making different length
cranks from the same forging. In the comments on the Bicycle
Quarterly blog Jan says:

"Initially, we’ll offer a length of 171 mm. Making several lengths
from the same forging is a bad idea, as the machining weakens the
crank. We may offer more lengths in the future, but if we do, we’d
want to make new forging dies, so that the crank remains a “near net”
forging with perfectly aligned grain structure."

(source: http://janheine.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/rene-herse-cranks/)

Stuart

[Eric Norris]

Anybody have an idea of what one of these will cost?

--Eric N
Sent from the iPad 2

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group.
> To post to this group, send email to rbw-owne...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bun...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
>

[cyclotourist]

Enough to make a Phil cassette hub look cheap I'm guessing.

--
Cheers,
David
Redlands, CA

...in terms of recreational cycling there are many riders who would probably benefit more from
improving their taste than from improving their performance. - RTMS

[Michael_S]

Considering  they will be made in Taiwan ( less $$) , coupled with amortizing tooling and other non-recurring costs (more$$) and Jan's comment that they would be affordable, I took a wild guess and said $400 ish.  I am probably way off.

 

Near net closed die tooling is not cheap to make. And with smaller batch sizes for something like this, it's not going to be anywhere near the price of good old Sugino XD's.  

 

I will probably buy one for my custom Rando anyway just cuz' they look so cool. Even if they only come in 171. Which was a vey common size made in the 70's, I've heard.

 

~mike

[james black]

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 15:18, Michael_S <mikey...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
> I will probably buy one for my custom Rando anyway just cuz' they look so
> cool. Even if they only come in 171. Which was a vey common size made in the
> 70's, I've heard.

As a matter of trivia, 171mm is the closest mm size to the old-timey 6
3/4" crank length, so it's just another of the many weird numbers we
are left with as a result of imperial standards being translated into
metric.

James Black
Los Angeles, CA

[Michael Hechmer]

Here's a crank, made in america, (White Ind) with 130, 110, or 104 spiders and crank lengths from 150 to 200 mm, with a very low Q. 

http://www.davincitandems.com/comp.html

I have them on my Ebisu All Purpose and Bilenkey Tandem.  Great looking and performing cranks for less money than the $400 suggested here.

The american machining industry has been the best in the world for a long time and is still capable of producing world class products.  After 40 years of buying the best of European & Japanese components I have come to the conclusion that Paul's brakes, Phil Wood & White hubs, White cranks and Chris King HS are better than anything ever produced overseas.

Rene Herse was a genius, but I'm going to pass on these cranks.

[S.Cutshall]

I run DaVinci cranks on my Bleriot. Fabulous quality, low Q, beautiful
eye candy.

Extremely pleased with them.

-Scott

[Tim McNamara]

Looking at the web site I see the DaVinci/White Industries Q factor is listed at a whopping 158 mm. Jeez! A stance that wide would getcha arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. Hopefully that's just for triples and doubles are narrower than that.

The trend to ridiculously wide cranks is an annoying anti-ergonomic one. I've been sticking with my Ritcheys (138-140 mm Q) for years as a result (I've got a set of Truvativ cranks that are 140 mm wide too).

Of course wide cranks are the consequence of stoopidly short chain stays combined with unnecessarily wide cassettes with 10 or 11 cogs on 'em. I am baffled by cranks with birthing chair Q factors as a standard. Certainly there are people whom these cranks work well for, but there are a lot of folks for whom they don't. Seems like it ought to be possible to offer a range...

[cyclotourist]

Ba-dump-bump!


But seriously folks, a wider Q seems to helped out my IT band problem.  YMMV etc.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group.
To post to this group, send email to rbw-owne...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bun...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.