So, they've opened a new pump track closeish to home, and being an amazingly cool dad who is down wi' the kids I took my DJ / pump track bike there for a spin.
Cased the crap out of one of the gaps. It turns out Shimano deore crank splines are no match 15 stone of unskilled biffer and a hard landing.
So I need some new cranks.
Been reading up about it and a lot of people recommended BMX 3 piece cromo cranks as they're generally a lot stronger.
However, it does look a bit of a faff and more expensive to set up. Also more risk of me buying the wrong parts and being without the bike for longer.
E.g. id have to find a BB that fits a BMX spindle (which are rare, it seems) plus also I'd need a larger than usual BMX chainring.
So might be better/stronger, but also likely to be a lot of faff.
Alternatively I could get some nice strong MTB style DH cranks - truvative descendent can be had cheap and they look sturdy.
A lot less faff, but probably ultimately not as strong.
What would STW do?
Think I'm leaning towards the MTB DH cranks for simplicity's sake.
I'm not bothered about weight by the way, but don't want to spend a fortune as it's supposed to be a cheap bike for messing about on occasionally.
Just find some old Saints, bash them in and crack on.
BMX cranks can be good but they're not cheap. Cheap ones are shit and double the weight of a mid range MTB crank. You'll also need what BMX calls a 'euro' bottom bracket. They have tiny bearings which can break easily.
As above, just get better MTB cranks. My experience of BMX cranks on my old jump bike (I'm talking 20+ years here) was that they're an absolute ball ache and need constant fettling. I guess things have moved on though so maybe things are more simple in which case, by some shiney Profiles.
