My ‘chuck it in the shed and worry about it later’ maintenance routine on my commuter left me with permanently attached cranks/pedals. I finally killed the pedals the other day so it’s time for new cranks…

They need to be compatible with the 130 bcd surly chainring that’s on the dead cranks as that still has plenty life in it. Theres a guard/bash on there that could come in handy too.

The shimano alfine specific cranks seem like an obvious choice, but I’m still not sure about the look of them. They’re going on a roadrat so mebbe that’s irrelevant 😉

s500 Alfine

These ones are tempting too, but I’ve heard bad things about X-Type BBs, offroad in clarty conditions at least.

Raceface Cadence

It’s either that or some serious penetrating oil/heat/torque to get the old pedals off the Bontrager GXP cranks that came stock with the bike.

Any advice or alternatives?

No boring long-winded replies to my boring long-winded question?

you tried a real pedal spanner ?

if you aint used one of those , your pedals are not yet declared stuck 😉

A crank is…pretty much…a crank!

I thought the alfine cranks looked awful, however they work well on the bike (pompino) and now I think they look right, besides with your bashguard you wouldn’t see the smooth out ring cover thing (set up like that for cycling with trous and works well when popping to the pub).

On my mtb with alfine I’m running an original LX HT1 crank with a xt bb and a on-one bashguard, it’s 4.5 years old and i’ve just about killed the cup and cone due to a similar approach to looking after my bike. Edit to say – the crank/bb is still working a treat.

I’d avoid raceface, piss poor reputation for bb’s.

Square taper.

This Sugino set is a bargain:
http://outspokencycles.co.uk/chainsets/SuginoRD2_cranks.html

Or try this very cheap offer from Charlie (no idea how long this BB will last, but Shimano UN55’s are still less than £15):
http://www.charliethebikemonger.com/driveline-track-cranks–free-bb-264-p.asp

PS. Your link to s500 Alfine is not suitable for your existing steel chainring

cheers folks and thanks for the links.

No spanner flats, so haven’t tried a proper spanner, but I have spiralled an allen key using a long lever and two LBSes have said ‘they are not coming off’

PS. Your link to s500 Alfine is not suitable for your existing steel chainring

Thanks for spotting that Simon.

the RF BBs aren’t brilliant it’s true but you can swap the bearings out when they fail.

The Cadence cranks are good though, and that’s a very good discounted price at CRC. I have some 110bcd on my commuter and they are plenty stiff with a good finish.

Any 130bcd crank will be fine. There were some cheap 105s over on BR, but they’ve just gone in the last few minutes.