After reading the article on Peaty running a SRAM road cassette on his DH steed (issue 53/p45), it got me wondering about the benefits of using road kit on mtb's. My brand new inbred frame should be arriving on monday which I want to build up as a winter training bike and summer speedy machine, and so a bit of experimentation might be in order.

Does/has anyone run a road chainset on their mtb through winter? Does it make much difference to using an mtb one?

apart from the BCD there is little difference, why would you run it in winter?

Aren't road BBs wider?

Because we need about 3" more clearance for our back tyres you might find the crank hits the (very splayed) chainstay unless you have a really wide BB spindle. Then the chainline would be out.

Not intending on specifically running it in winter. But the first ride will be in the winter, so I wondered whether the road kit is any worse at dealing with Ridgeway chalk and Swinley sand.

It will be ok i'd run a triple 32-42-52 or something like that and your frame will have to be 68mm unless its no a ht2 or similar chainset.

Looking at the amount of metal on my Ultegra crank arms, I would not be wanting to do anything extreme unless you are a featherweight.

They'll be plenty strong enough, but there's just no point frankly, particularly if you're using it off road it's just a bit daft.

If you've got a 68mm shell it may be possible, but do you really need a 52t front ring? And you won't be able to go smaller than a 32.

Nico Vouilloz ran a Dura Ace 7800 chainset on his 4X bike with a carbon bash guard, that looked good.