I notice Middleburn have started selling an x-type crankset. Drool:


It looks like they come as a three-piece setup, with the axle not permanently fixed to either crank. As stiffness was one of the major taling points in the move to external type bottom brackets, can anyone explain what the point of middleburns design is? I don’t doubt it’ll be superbly designed and made, and will cost more than most of the rest of the parts on my bike combined…

they are a year old

Oh 🙁

And why are they three-piece?

The axle is permanently bonded to the L/H arm

drool

Really? Every time I see them, they make me think of cheap, old design cranks with a separate spider/arms. I’m sure that functionally they’re fine but I just can’t see that they offer anything over Shimano.

they were lovely- i had the 1st black pair.

shame the tollerencs were awful – end of the crank hit the chainstay on my HT, and heard of 2 other instances of this. sent mine back, was told a re-design/reworking was under way. v poor communication, and 3 months later i asked for a refund.

real shame as i’d wanted some from when the first rumour about them came out years ago.

as i said though, beautiful cranks.

A recent What Mountain Bike crankset shoot out reported them to be quite heavy and not that stiff.

They look great, but you can get Shimano XTR for just over £200..

Only real issue with XTR is the cost of new rings…

then buy mine off me! running 1×10 and have been trying to shift them for ages!