Shorter cranks - what are your options?

Are you considering a move to shorter cranks?

If you’ve already committed yourself to this change then perhaps you’ve noticed just how hard it can be to find options that fit your bike.

Despite decades worth of research into the benefits of cranks shorter than the conventional 170-175mm range, most major manufacturers still don’t offer crank options in a length that is suitable for many riders. In recent years, more options have become available but a combination of factors (a broad range of different compatibility requirements, industry-wide stock shortages and an increase in the number of cyclists that have become wise to the benefits offered by shorter cranks) can make it tricky to find cranks <170mm.

To help you on your quest for {insert any of the myriad benefits of cranks shorter than <170mm}, we’ve put together a table of the options we most commonly recommend to our bike fitting customers. Whilst there are some other options we’ve not listed, these are generally either out of stock or just too expensive to recommend - if you think there’s an option we should include then drop us an email.

Research on bike fitting shows that there are normative ranges for joint angle which can effectively improve comfort. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9564639

However, it’s often not possible due to the constraints of certain components and bike frames to fit riders shorter than an averagely tall male within these ranges. For instance, excessive crank lengths mean that many (if not most) women are unable to find positions which are in range for both maximum knee extension AND maximum knee flexion. This forces female riders to compromise on what is arguably the most important positional factor.

In some cases, riders may be able to tolerate the resultant strain at the saddle or in their lower back. However, it’s also likely that the excessive hip flexion caused by crank lengths (that have been designed for the averagely tall man) could be contributing to potentially life threatening injuries such as external iliac arterial endofibrosis, which has forced some of the greatest riders in the history of our sport (such as Marianne Vos, Pauline Ferrand-Prevot and Annemiek Van Vleuten to name a few) to undergo major surgeries.