Bontrager Cranks

A while back, I was having my BB worked on by, gulp, the LBS, and they put a Bontrager Race GXP crankset on to use in the meantime. Compared to MY Ultegra set, this was horrible. My 2001 Veloce triple worked better than this. It felt like jello under my power, which is far from impressive. Does anyone know why? Is is construction? Material? Are the high-end Bontrager cranks any better? I know that Bontrager isn't known for their cranks, but I would think that pride would step in at some point and they would at least make a decent part.

Actually, they were just Bontrager Race, not Race GXP. Still sucked though.

I had a Bontrager Race triple crank once, it was horrible. It was totally flexy and in the end became so bent from normal use that I had to get rid of it. Once I upgraded to Ultegra I couldn't believe how nice and stiff it was, how much more power I had. I also had a set of Bontrager wheels that required trueing every two weeks. In my opinion, Bontrager is junk (albeit I have not tried their top of the line stuff).

There is a huge difference between low and high end bontrager parts. I have a xxx lite carbon stem and x lite carbon bars on my bike now and it is MUCH stiffer than the ritchey pro bars and stem (which were aluminum) that I was previously running. I've never owned a set of high end bontrager cranks, but I've ridden several different bikes with the x lite carbon cranks on it and they were very nice riding. Not as stiff as a good aluminum (ultegra or dura ace for example) crank, but stiffer than my fsa cranks.

The one real downfall to the Bontrager cranks is the design. The design makes it so the more you tighten the BB, the tighter the bearings get therefore making the cranks spin quite terribly (This is the way it was explained to me by a mechanic). You're much better off getting a Shimano or Campy crank. Hell, I switched to all Force and kept my old alu Chorus crank because I liked it so much.

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