What is an ideal crank length for freestyle unis. I know this also is probably personal preferance, but I want to know.
Thanks,
Miles
I would say anything under 125 mm. The shorter they are the more smooth your routines are and the less wobble, so for the harder tricks such as stand up gliding where you don’t want your wheel to move much, the shorter cranks will help alot. Plus they help you go faster.
so would 110’s work?
They would work, but then again anything would work really, its all about preference. When and if I ever get enough money to buy the miyata I want it will probably have something alone the lines of 80 mm cranks on it.
For my 20" freestyle, I started with 125s, and they were a bit long feeling. I use 110s now, and they feel good.
I rode with 125s for years (all my world champion years). They’re fine, but they might be considered a little long. They hit the floor, and don’t allow for some of the smooth spins and turns you can do with shorter ones.
My newer Freestyle uni came with 110s, which always felt a little short to me. Mostly this is probably due to my long history with the 125s and lack of hours spent on the new one. Recently I switched to 114s and I think I’ll be staying there.
Unicon IX world champion Kazuhiro Shimoyama (current bronze medalist) uses 89mm cranks, which I would consider to be pretty short. But they definitely work for him, allowing faster spins and smoother lines of riding, but would probabaly make certain types of tricks very hard. But since he doesn’t do those sorts of tricks it doesn’t matter for him.