Shorter cranks.....baffled.

[BlackPanther]

After reading quite a bit about the advantages of shorter cranks, I thought I'd give them a try. But, (and this may just be me) it all seems rather complicated. I few months ago I bought my Trice, and it came with 170mm cranks. It's a triple (130mm bcd) with rotor Q rings. I'd like to try around a 150, and thought I'd found it http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/thorn-tandem-crankset-for-x-over-drive-front-prod1671/ but this listing (and others) doesn't actually state if this is a triple? The more I read about bcd, pcd, cotterless, isis, square taper etc etc, the more I think I'm going to end up buying the wrong item!

After all the faffing around on t'internet, I'm thinking it would be easier just to go to the bike shop and get them to order me one.......but I'd like to save a few quid if possible.

I also have a spare Veloce Campagnola 170 crankset, which I thought of shortening (or having shortened). I could buy a tap and die set and have a go, but the sets don't state if they do reverse threads, and tbh, even with a decent pillar drill at work, I'm not sure I'd get the hole bang vertical, so I don't know if I should try it.

Like I said......maybe it's just me?

 

[RecordAceFromNew]

Since you said you want to save a few quids and just to have a go why not just get something like this? There are a few in shops on ebay selling similar, but this seems to have the biggest rings, which I presume you want with your small wheels.

You likely have to get a new matching bottom bracket (which precise spec might depend on what chainline you want), but you can get square tapered BBs for not much money. If you want to keep the existing BB you will have to know exactly what it is first and find a chainset to match to deliver the chainline, which, given you want 150mm arms, is going to be a hard task I suspect.

You are probably better off selling your Veloce and use the proceeds to buy whatever you want. Doing what you are thinking about with it sounds a couple of bridges too far to me...