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umop3pisdn in reply to @frankenbike

I'll let @mdcc_tester summarise his experiments with short cranks and cadence

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gbj_tester in reply to @umop3pisdn
I'll let tester summarise his experiments with short cranks and cadence

If you keep gain ratio constant, you'll do the same speed, within any practical range of crank lengths. There might be marginal differences from the following sources:
1. Shorter cranks reducing effecting frontal area and therefore reducing drag
2. Higher cadence increasing downstream turbulence and therefore increasing drag
3. Higher cadence increasing metabolic cost due to more frequent muscle firing
4. Higher pedal force increasing metabolic cost due to greater muscle force and length of contraction
If 2 didn't cancel out 1, and/or 4 cancel out 3, there would be a clear choice between long cranks/low cadence and short cranks/high cadence for racing cyclists :)

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frankenbike in reply to @gbj_tester

I doubt he'll be worrying about drag for polo but interesting nonetheless
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Emyr in reply to @gbj_tester

For polo, I'd expect changes to the bike dynamics when accelerating from near-zero and at spinout to be more important.

@n3il You're not particularly short, so if you're worried about pedal strike, fit narrower slimmer pedals or get a frame with a higher BB. Or fit bigger tyres.

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