Campagnolo crankset dating

For indoor unicycling such as freestyle or hockey, shorter cranks give a smoother pedaling motion and enable tighter turns without the pedal hitting the floor.

Crank lengths of 100mm are common, although some riders use cranks as short as 79mm.

A solution, suggested by Jobst Brandt, is to use a 45 degree taper at the surface where crank and pedal meet, as this would eliminate precession-induced fretting and loosening (it is already done for most automobile lug nuts for the latter reason).

However, this would require manufacturers to change a well-established standard which currently allows most pedals to be fitted to most cranks.

One-piece or children's cranks use a 1/2 inch hole.

However, very few scientific studies have definitively examined the effect of crank length on sustained cycling performance and the studies' results have been mixed.

A few small specialty manufacturers make bicycle cranks in a number of sizes smaller than 165 mm and longer than 180 mm.

Some manufacturers also make bicycle cranks that can be adjusted to different lengths.

This can eventually be a cause of crank breakage, which commonly occurs at the pedal eye.

Some manufacturers advise the use of a thin steel washer between the pedal and crank, but this is ineffective because the hard washer frets against the crank instead.