How many prefer wide Q?

Chalo said:

I have been riding a number of different bikes these days, and one of
the things I have noticed many times before has come to my attention
again: I have a better, smoother, more natural pedal stroke on a bike
with a large tread width (high Q factor).

On a bike with a narrow tread, I tend to splay my knees outwards
without thinking about it, I guess so that I can more easily aim my
feet back towards the centerline of the bike; basically, I tend to
pedal bow-legged. Also, my feet wander further and further towards
the outer end of the pedals, until I feel them trying to tip off the
edge and pull them back inwards. I have to maintain effort to keep
from doing both of these things when I ride a narrow-treaded bike.

When the bike has a very wide tread (and I have had a few bikes with
BB spindles over 170mm), I don't have any problem with the
aforementioned pedaling quirks. My knees stay in line with my feet,
and my feet stay centered on the pedals.

While I am a bigger than normal guy, I feel like I can't be alone in
having an easier time with a relatively wide tread than with a narrow
one. But I do understand that it's pretty uncommon for me to have
used such a large range of tread widths on my own bikes.

I know there are some small structural and handling benefits to narrow
tread, and I know that most people who espouse any opinion about tread
width generally say the narrower the better, no matter who's doing the
pedaling. But my observed experience contradicts this
generalization.

So, is there anybody here besides myself who has tried both narrow-
and wide-treaded setups and found that they like wide ones better?

Chalo

Hi there Chalo.

For me it is the exact opposite. I prefer a very narrow Q-factor. I
have always amazed the racers because of how close to the frame I
pedal. In fact my thighs just miss the top tube on my 22 inches
horizontal top tube bicycles. I pedal so close to the frame that I
constantly brush against a round water bottle on the seat tube. i
recently bought two Campy aero bottles because of that problem. I
would love it if I could get a modern Campy crankset but with straight
crank arms instead of tthe off-set ones. incidently, I have always
pedaled extremely close to the frame even when I was 150 pounds. I am
5 feet nine inches tall and weigh 175 poinds now.

Cheers from Peter

Chalo Colina said:

I have been riding a number of different bikes these days, and one of
the things I have noticed many times before has come to my attention
again: I have a better, smoother, more natural pedal stroke on a bike
with a large tread width (high Q factor).

On a bike with a narrow tread, I tend to splay my knees outwards
without thinking about it, I guess so that I can more easily aim my
feet back towards the centerline of the bike; basically, I tend to
pedal bow-legged. Also, my feet wander further and further towards
the outer end of the pedals, until I feel them trying to tip off the
edge and pull them back inwards. I have to maintain effort to keep
from doing both of these things when I ride a narrow-treaded bike.

When the bike has a very wide tread (and I have had a few bikes with
BB spindles over 170mm), I don't have any problem with the
aforementioned pedaling quirks. My knees stay in line with my feet,
and my feet stay centered on the pedals.

While I am a bigger than normal guy, I feel like I can't be alone in
having an easier time with a relatively wide tread than with a narrow
one. But I do understand that it's pretty uncommon for me to have
used such a large range of tread widths on my own bikes.

I know there are some small structural and handling benefits to narrow
tread, and I know that most people who espouse any opinion about tread
width generally say the narrower the better, no matter who's doing the
pedaling. But my observed experience contradicts this
generalization.

So, is there anybody here besides myself who has tried both narrow-
and wide-treaded setups and found that they like wide ones better?

I prefer narrower "Q" cranks, but to judge by pictures, my hip sockets
are much closer together than Chalo's.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

In article <[email hidden]>,

Chalo said:

So, is there anybody here besides myself who has tried both narrow-
and wide-treaded setups and found that they like wide ones better?

Given the market dominance of Shimano and their tendency to have a Q
factor of 160 mm or greater, either a lot of people share your
preference or just don't notice one way or the other.

Wide Q cranks make my knees hurt. After much experimentation, I found
that I prefer a Q of 140 mm which is pretty typical of Campy cranks (at
least all the Campy cranks I own have a Q factor of 140 mm), and I have
been able to achieve this with my old long-discontinued Ritchey cranks
and the appropriate bottom bracket.

On Sun, 08 Jul 2007 09:46:57 -0000, Chalo <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

I have been riding a number of different bikes these days, and one of
the things I have noticed many times before has come to my attention
again: I have a better, smoother, more natural pedal stroke on a bike
with a large tread width (high Q factor).

On a bike with a narrow tread, I tend to splay my knees outwards
without thinking about it, I guess so that I can more easily aim my
feet back towards the centerline of the bike; basically, I tend to
pedal bow-legged. Also, my feet wander further and further towards
the outer end of the pedals, until I feel them trying to tip off the
edge and pull them back inwards. I have to maintain effort to keep
from doing both of these things when I ride a narrow-treaded bike.

When the bike has a very wide tread (and I have had a few bikes with
BB spindles over 170mm), I don't have any problem with the
aforementioned pedaling quirks. My knees stay in line with my feet,
and my feet stay centered on the pedals.

While I am a bigger than normal guy, I feel like I can't be alone in
having an easier time with a relatively wide tread than with a narrow
one. But I do understand that it's pretty uncommon for me to have
used such a large range of tread widths on my own bikes.

I know there are some small structural and handling benefits to narrow
tread, and I know that most people who espouse any opinion about tread
width generally say the narrower the better, no matter who's doing the
pedaling. But my observed experience contradicts this
generalization.

So, is there anybody here besides myself who has tried both narrow-
and wide-treaded setups and found that they like wide ones better?

Chalo

--
JT
****************************
Remove "remove" to reply
Visit http://www.jt10000.com
****************************

On Sun, 08 Jul 2007 09:46:57 -0000, Chalo <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

I have been riding a number of different bikes these days, and one of
the things I have noticed many times before has come to my attention
again: I have a better, smoother, more natural pedal stroke on a bike
with a large tread width (high Q factor).

On a bike with a narrow tread, I tend to splay my knees outwards
without thinking about it, I guess so that I can more easily aim my
feet back towards the centerline of the bike; basically, I tend to
pedal bow-legged. Also, my feet wander further and further towards
the outer end of the pedals, until I feel them trying to tip off the
edge and pull them back inwards. I have to maintain effort to keep
from doing both of these things when I ride a narrow-treaded bike.

When the bike has a very wide tread (and I have had a few bikes with
BB spindles over 170mm), I don't have any problem with the
aforementioned pedaling quirks. My knees stay in line with my feet,
and my feet stay centered on the pedals.

While I am a bigger than normal guy,

How much bigger?

How much wider?
--
JT
****************************
Remove "remove" to reply
Visit http://www.jt10000.com
****************************

On Sun, 08 Jul 2007 09:46:57 -0000, Chalo <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

I have a better, smoother, more natural pedal stroke on a bike
with a large tread width (high Q factor).

[snip]

Dear Chalo,

You sit up higher, too:

http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/photographs/highwheel/regviews/highwheel15v.jpg

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

Chalo<[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

While I am a bigger than normal guy,

How much bigger?

I'm 6'8" tall and over 350 lbs., so I guess that would be about two
and a half inches taller and about seventy-five pounds heavier than
the average, you know, real man.

http://www.carnera.org/images/primo6.jpg

Quoted message said:

How much wider?

I'd be willing to bet that my hip sockets haven't gotten any further
apart since I weighed 220. I definitely noticed the same knee splay
problem I described earlier when I weighed that much. At that time I
only owned one bike, so I was not able to correlate the problem with
tread width.

Chalo

"Chalo" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I have been riding a number of different bikes these days, and one of
the things I have noticed many times before has come to my attention
again: I have a better, smoother, more natural pedal stroke on a bike
with a large tread width (high Q factor).

On a bike with a narrow tread, I tend to splay my knees outwards
without thinking about it, I guess so that I can more easily aim my
feet back towards the centerline of the bike; basically, I tend to
pedal bow-legged. Also, my feet wander further and further towards
the outer end of the pedals, until I feel them trying to tip off the
edge and pull them back inwards. I have to maintain effort to keep
from doing both of these things when I ride a narrow-treaded bike.

When the bike has a very wide tread (and I have had a few bikes with
BB spindles over 170mm), I don't have any problem with the
aforementioned pedaling quirks. My knees stay in line with my feet,
and my feet stay centered on the pedals.

While I am a bigger than normal guy, I feel like I can't be alone in
having an easier time with a relatively wide tread than with a narrow
one. But I do understand that it's pretty uncommon for me to have
used such a large range of tread widths on my own bikes.

I know there are some small structural and handling benefits to narrow
tread, and I know that most people who espouse any opinion about tread
width generally say the narrower the better, no matter who's doing the
pedaling. But my observed experience contradicts this
generalization.

So, is there anybody here besides myself who has tried both narrow-
and wide-treaded setups and found that they like wide ones better?

Chalo

I've had a similar situation. I suffered recurrent knee problems for 15-20
years. A friend suggested that I should change the position of my feet on
the pedals to have my heels inward and my toes pointing outward.

I removed my cleats to experiment with different positions and voilà....
No more knee problems.

I have several problems with this toe-ed out foot position. On bikes with
wide rear axles and short chainstays I frequently hit the stays with my
heels. The other problem, I had a total hip replacement a few years ago
and my right foot is splayed outward at 5° to 10° from my original stance.

These days I ride with toeclips and straps but no cleats. I've tried 1/2
dozen different pedal styles and I found that the old wide MTB pedals work
best for me. I've modified the toeclip mounting holes so that the clips
are at the far outside of the pedals.

I haven't been able to find clipless shoes that fit comfortable plus my
ortho told me no running, jumping, skiing, tennis, cleats or clipless
pedals unless I want to get my hip replaced again.

I have very wide feet - size 10 1/2 EEE. My hips are 16" wide and in a
normal stance my feet are 6" - 7" (150mm - 180mm) apart.

I was trying to adjust the Q factor using wide pedals. A while back I
noticed that I was much more comfortable riding one of my MTBs with an old
Shimano Deore XT crankset. I did some measurements and noticed that they
were wider than the cranks on my other bikes (I don't remember the
dimensions). I put a set of these cranks on an old cross bike and a
Colnago road bike and it made a world of difference.

I tried a set of 19mm (3/4"😉 pedal extenders. I found that they were a
little to wide for me and that I didn't need the left one. I have the
right one on one of my road bikes with a narrow Q width and I'm going to
put extenders on the right crank of several other bikes. Have to remember
not to pedal through sharp right hand turns.

A Q factor of 170mm to 180mm is just about right for me (I think, I need
to measure my bikes again).

It seems to me that traditional cycling standards were built around skinny
malnourished European W.W.I and W.W.II survivors: what with the narrow
36cm and 38cm bars, narrow pedals, narrow Q factor, skinny round topped
saddles and so on.

Chas.

Tim McNamara said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Chalo said:

So, is there anybody here besides myself who has tried both narrow-
and wide-treaded setups and found that they like wide ones better?

Given the market dominance of Shimano and their tendency to have a Q
factor of 160 mm or greater, either a lot of people share your
preference or just don't notice one way or the other.

Wide Q cranks make my knees hurt. After much experimentation, I found
that I prefer a Q of 140 mm which is pretty typical of Campy cranks (at
least all the Campy cranks I own have a Q factor of 140 mm), and I have
been able to achieve this with my old long-discontinued Ritchey cranks
and the appropriate bottom bracket.

I thought Shimano (and FSA) used a Q factor of 147mm on their racing
group (DA/Ultegra/etc) road double cranks. Not sure about any other
cranks they make; their triples are definitely wider but I'm not sure
by how much.--Shayana Kadidal

Per Chalo:

Quoted message said:

So, is there anybody here besides myself who has tried both narrow-
and wide-treaded setups and found that they like wide ones better?

I think I'm one. I had always thought that logically the
further apart one's hip sockets are, the further apart the pedals
should be.

Then, for unrelated reasons, I switch to flats exclusively.

A couple of nagging problems went away as my feet found their own
Q factor, alignment, and fore-aft position. Now then I look
down, I can see that my feet are generally a little bit outboard
of being centered on the pedals.
--
PeteCresswell

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

I have been riding a number of different bikes these days, and one of
the things I have noticed many times before has come to my attention
again: I have a better, smoother, more natural pedal stroke on a bike
with a large tread width (high Q factor).

I don't know how many people prefer wider Q, but there are enough that
at least one company sells pedal-spindle extensions just for widening
the tread without changing everything else.

http://www.bikescor.com/product/knee.htm

Disclaimer: I've never used the product and don't know anything about
the company beyond having seen their magazine ads many years ago. I
actually thought they weren't around any more until I Googled them for
this posting.

--
[email hidden] is Joshua Putnam
<http://www.phred.org/~josh/>
Braze your own bicycle frames. See
<http://www.phred.org/~josh/build/build.html>

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

I have been riding a number of different bikes these days, and one of
the things I have noticed many times before has come to my attention
again: I have a better, smoother, more natural pedal stroke on a bike
with a large tread width (high Q factor).

I don't know how many people prefer wider Q, but there are enough that
at least one company sells pedal-spindle extensions just for widening
the tread without changing everything else.

http://www.bikescor.com/product/knee.htm

Disclaimer: I've never used the product and don't know anything about
the company beyond having seen their magazine ads many years ago. I
actually thought they weren't around any more until I Googled them for
this posting.

--
[email hidden] is Joshua Putnam

I bought a set of 20mm extenders and tried them for a few months. They
felt a little too wide for me since I've been able to do a lot of Q
correction by using extra wide pedals (they looked a little geeky too with
wide MTB pedals).

I ended up using just the right side extender for my splayed out foot.

They would probably work better with narrower pedals or clipless.

They're pretty well made using stainless steel but not highly
cosmetic.They come in 20mm, 25mm and 30mm extension lengths. They are a
little overpriced at $25 each or $45 per pair.

I'm going to get some more right side extenders for several other bikes.

Chas.