rotor cranks

"ari" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:8c1ec.400$fS6.317@okepread01...

Quoted message said:

From reading their site (www.rotorcranks.com), it looks
like one of the crank arms is arranged at 1 o'clock while
the other is in the traditional 6 o'clock.

If I had a shimano octalink splined BB/cranks, could'nt I
just install one of the arms incorrectly in order to
achieve the same effect? The rotor cranks are >$500 and I
have no idea why, what am I missing.

It looks like they switch twice each time each pedal
rotation so that your top foot is always slightly past 12:00
when your bottom foot is at 6:00. I'm not sure it's as far
ahead as 1:00, but let's say it is. If you fixed a regular
set of cranks to achieve the 1&6 position when one foot was
up, they would be at a 11&6 position when the other foot was
up, causing a loss in power.

--
Scott Ehardt scehardt.comscehardt.comOpen ↗

ari may have said:

From reading their site (www.rotorcranks.com), it looks
like one of the crank arms is arranged at 1 o'clock while
the other is in the traditional 6 o'clock.

If I had a shimano octalink splined BB/cranks, could'nt I
just install one of the arms incorrectly in order to
achieve the same effect? The rotor cranks are >$500 and I
have no idea why, what am I missing.

No, the idea behind the rotor cranks is that the pedals do
not work precisly in synch at all; as the BB shaft rotates,
each crank's position relative to it *changes*, increasing
the mechanical advantage of the leg where it supposedly can
be beneficial to do so, and speeding the return of the foot
to the power production point in the cycle. That's the
theory. In practice, they're heavy, and they're not proven
to be sufficiently beneficial to make me have the least
interest in them. In particular, I have yet to see any
definitive information regarding how much friction loss
there is within the system itself; this could easily
outweigh any supposed advantage.

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