I am about to go from 175 to 170 cranks on my Scott Spark. I am 180cm with 82cm inseam and spark is medium. What is yout exp with going shorter with the cranks?

170mm cranks… if you know, you know. First, it was the way people looked at me. It made me feel a bit self conscious at first, but gradually I started to enjoy it. Initially I thought I had done my hair differently as it was mainly women who were looking at me, then I knew it was some deeper as men …

[image] swgregg: try to find a way to try 165mm before committing to buying, you might even prefer them and you’ll probably feel the 10mm difference more than 5mm, which everything considered equally is quite a small change. :laughing: I went from 175 to 165. I’m 188cm, 92cm inseam and I can …

Haha so throwing 500+ euros seems like a god bang for the buck

I went from 175 to 170 on my MTB and couldn’t notice anything different. I did so for less pedal strikes and it was a big improvement.

so nothing in the stroke? No powert improvement, no fatigue reduction?

Not that I noticed. Maybe if I had done some back to back test runs comparing the two there’d be something small, but nothing I concerned myself with. The goal was to avoid pedal strikes, so that’s what focused on.

I changed to 170 on mtb and 165 on roads bike a few years ago and didn’t notice anything different. On the road you can get a bit lower on the drops but on the mtb I didn’t notice anything

I have 175 on my xc bike and 170 on my enduro bike - 190cm with 86cm inseam. the 170 cranks drive me nuts. I don’t understand the hype of smaller cranks and probably never will. It’s okay, in 5 years we’ll be back to long cranks :slight_smile:

I am a big fan of shorter cranks. I never felt I could get a smooth spin with 175 on my mountain bike and switched to 170 which feel much better. I had 172.5 on my gravel bike and also switched that to 170 so everything is the same. I have even thought about going 165. My inseam is 82cm and 183c…

It does depend on your style a bit. My feeling is if your a bit of a grinder, longer can be better, or atleast fine. I really like my 180mm xtr race cranks, unfortunately they don’t fit great on most bikes. 175 is fine, but I don’t notice a huge difference. I do notice when I step down to 170s on th…

XC MTB 175->170 Cranks experiance

Equipment

jn92 February 6, 2025, 9:50am 3

I went from 175 to 165. I’m 188cm, 92cm inseam and I can confirm what @swgregg claimed above. It even grew the 1cm I took off my cranks. Makes all the difference wearing thight bibs

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XC MTB 175->170 Cranks experiance

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