Brompton Crankset Options

[John the Monkey]

Fellow Bromptoneers!

It's occurred to me that I'll need to replace the crankset on my trusty B at some point.

Has anyone done anything interesting/useful/economical with crankset replacements, or is it a case of just buying one from Brompton? I rather like the looks of the new "spider" crankset, but knowing the ingenuity of Brompton owners, I wondered whether anyone had done anything better.

 

[TheDoctor]

We!l, the Stronglight £20 chainset from Spa Cycles looks like a cheap replacement. If you need a 42T or 44T, anyhow.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Stronglight Double, 52/42 or similar.

 

[John the Monkey]

Thanks both - being in flat Cheshire, the 42 or 44 would be a little too low.

 

[12boy]

I had a creaking problem which I attributed to the bottom bracket which had plastic instead of aluminum and was therefore hard to tighten.I replaced this with a generic 119 mm sealed bottom bracket and a set of Sugino RD cranks, with 54t and 38t chain rings coupled with a 12 t cog. This yields 76 and 53.5 gear inches, a flat land gear and a granny gear for hills.This is a greasy finger shift deal, but it works fine with one caveat...if you fold it up on the 38 chain ring the chain can come off. Of course, any crankset set up for two chain rings would probably work the same. BTW the creaking was not the bottom bracket but some SPDs I was using. Go figure.

 

[RMurphy195]

Basically, I think its a square taper BB so you should be able to get something tasty and nice-looking from e.g. Spa cycles. This looks nice http://www.spacycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m2b0s109p1699.

Might be an idea to email them and ask their opinion.

Edit: Just seen this http://www.spacycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m2b0s109p1698