gclark8 said:
I'm not having a crack at ya, I'm having a crack at the long crank guys......
Are the Greenspeed recommendations for recumbents? If not, I don't know where guys get their 'science' from.
NO medium/tall pros use cranks that are relatively that long.
As many of us know, Indurain is 6ft2, and used 180s for most races and 190s for time-trials (I'd like to know his inseam). Ulrich is 6ft, and uses 177.5, which, if he has the same leg length as me (I'm also 6ft), is 19.8%. Sosenka used 190s for his hour record, but he's 6ft7!!. Booned is (I think) 6ft3, and uses 177.5mm. That's it for the pros -- as as I know there are nop pros,even the very tall, racing on longer than 180. If, for eg, Axel Merckx thought he would win more races with 200mm cranks, I'm sure he'd use them. Some would say that he's restrcited to using sponsored products, but the sponsors like nothing more than victories.
Andrew Bradley, Lennard Zinn and Kirby palm (proportional crank length advocates) are all tall guys who, I reckon, have generalized from their own experinces, which was the frustration of being retrsicted to cranks no longer than 175mm when they were racing. Just because a bunch of short guys rode 170s (Palm's "logic") doesn't mean that 6ft6 guys should be on 220s! Andrew Bradley's site is by far the most balanced, offering stacks of impartial info, but his preferred formula is for a longer than normal crank fro medium/tall riders.
This article, which Kirdy Palm laughingly 'bags' on his site, counters the long crank stuff.
http://www.bsn.com/Cycling/cranks.html
These are Chris Carmichael's 'general' recommendations for road racing:
inseam less than 29", 165mm cranks
inseam 29" to 32", 170mm
inseam 32" to 34", 172.5mm
inseam over 34", 175mm
Here's another more reasonable chart
http://www.myra-simon.com/bike/cranks.html