im currently using 102’s on my steath Torker,the stock 127’s are to long.
anyway,i feel the 102’s are a little to short,do you think it is worth $25 bucks to get the 110mm Bike Euro’s?
anyone have both Miyata 102’s and Bike euro 110’s that has compared the two on a 20?
I personally like the control 114’s give, but their not really available anymore. so 110s are pretty close. I used to run 102’s but I got sick of falling because I didnt have the leverage to stop. I got sick of 125’s really fast because thier so darned long for freestyle. I personally would get the 110’s, but of course it may not be worth the 30-35 after shipping to you.
For the limited amount of freestyle that I do, I find 110s more or less ideal on my 20.
102s are too short for quick changes of speed. They tend to ‘flick past’ top dead centre, kicking the uni away from you.
125s are a bit long. I can hit the floor with 110s on a tight turn.
My level of freestyle is one foot idle/ride, 2 or 3 trick mounts, mount, ride and (sometimes) idle seat out in front, reverse, hop.
so it turns out that 8mm is worth the $25 bucks.
110mm BE’s feel very good,i thought it would be like splitting hairs but its almost a night & day differance from the puny 102’s.
Well it took me about two months to really get used to my 102s. The more turning you do, the more you will like shorter cranks. Shorter cranks allow you to speed up and slow down faster, assuming you have the leg power. But I think that develops once you have them on. This leads to the possibility of recovering from positions that in the past would have lead to a dismount.
Idling, and transitions from fwd to bwd, etc. were more difficult to deal with. But recently I have felt much more stable on the uni. I’ve attributed this to getting used to the 102s. Another side effect of shorter cranks is that the seat is also higher. Seat on the side is easier with a higher seat.
I feel that short cranks have the opposite effect. Short cranks have an advantage in that they do not scrape the ground as much in sharp turns. They do not allow you to speed up and slow down faster. They take longer to speed up, allowing a higher top speed and less energy to maintain top speed due to less wild flailing of the legs. It also takes longer to slow down since there is more momentum and less leverage in the cranks. They also seem to reduce stability and fine control. I like short cranks, but there are some things you sacrifice in order to get the benefits of top speed.
Shorter cranks allow/require you to apply a higher overall force to the pedals to obtain a given result. Assuming that your ability to control the amount of force hasn’t changed, you should have more control over the force applied since the range of forces you can apply has increased (20% when moving from 5 to 4 inch cranks).
Accelleration: I really was refering to short term increase and decrease, i.e. fractions of a pedal stroke. Since your leg/foot has to move less distance to effect the same rotation of the wheel, if you can move your leg/foot faster, your accelleration will be higher. This requires higher leg strength, but most of us don’t utilize our max leg strength on a 20" anyway. Overall, this applies to multiple pedal strokes as well.
Turning/Twisting/Stability: If you are using the force of the legs on the pedals to help you turn, or stablize yourself, the pedals are swinging in a circle horizontal to the ground, like in a uni-spin. With shorter cranks, this circle is smaller. The smaller circle makes it easier to turn fast, but this amplifies the effect of any wobble or unintentional turning. Stability is also affected by the correcting actions you apply. If you are used to 5" cranks, you push down, or around an inch to effect a change, but now the change is greater for that inch, and you end up over compensating.
But you can still loose it when trying to stop. Why? Simply you reach a point in the pedal stroke where you have run out of room to stop. You need to decrease the momentum of yourself plus the uni, yet you have less distance to reduce this momentum. The amount of leg strength isn’t high enough to produce the required forces, even standing up with a straight leg isn’t enough, and the uni continues to move. With longer cranks, standing up will allow you to apply the same force for a longer distance, reducing momentum more than with shorter cranks.
But then again, I could be totally wrong.
iunicycle
ive had those 102’s for a long time and got quite used to them but there was always the problem them rolling over.i couldnt stop the wheel all the time,especialy when bailing back to the pedals after a failed attemp at a new skill.
the 110s feel really good and there still short enough to not hit the ground in a tight spin,and they are lighter than Miyata 102’s to boot!