I seem to be going through a patch of Everything Breaking All Of The Time, and it's getting annoying and expensive!
The latest is the pedal insert in my SRAM Red left crank arm is loose within the arm. I don't think this is repairable, and as it's about 3 years old and cosmetically a bit rough, I don't hold out any hope of warranty.
In the interest of buying something that should last a good while for my gravel bike, I'd been looking at the Middleburn RO2 cranks as something made of solid metal. No carbon, no glue, and a sensible 110BCD to be able to use my existing rings. £230 for the cranks and spider are a lot, but should last forever. Right?! Other option would be GRX810, but they're pretty spendy (although rings included), are (probably?) glued together, and have that annoying bolt pattern which means my existing rings wouldn't work.
Any other options for a reasonably nice and very reliable crankset please?!
I'd go for some decent aftermarket 110 BCD cranks that you can get chain rings for that aren't chainset specific.
Middleburn will be fine - you don't ideally want to downgrade though. Seems to be an issue with SRAM carbon cranks and inserts coming loose.
I'm not sure I'd see Middleburn as much of a downgrade compared to Red - certainly in terms of cost! They may be a bit heavier, but as they're on a bikepacking gravel bike, weight isn't as much a priority as durability.
Was talking about a downgrade to a generic set of cranks, rather than Middleburn. My CX bike is running 110 BCD FSA cranks, that are fine, not super light, but chain rings are easy to get. My other road bikes are running Ultegra and Dura Ace - both lovely solid aluminium, none of this hollowtech.
get the middleburn, if only to make me feel better.
if i’d had my wits the last time i bought new cranks, there what i’d have right now.
I've been running Middlebury's for decades. They do not fail.