• The bottom bracket drop is, by definition, the distance by which the centre of the bottom bracket spindle/axle drops below the horizontal line between the centre of the wheels axles, this of course is based on the assumption that both wheels are the same size.

    As you move the bottom bracket up, by reducing bottom bracket drop, if you keep the seat tube the same length, you will raise the height of the top of the seat tube, if you keep the point at which the top tube joins to the seat tube the same, then the top tube and the standover height will increase accordingly.

    If you keep the amount by which the seatpost protrudes from the seat tube the same, as you raise the the bottom bracket and the height of the top of the seat tube you'll also increase the height of the saddle.

    I'd say that standover height is only an issue if it's too high, very very crudely if you're not cracking your nuts, I can't see a problem, if you are, I'd say that's a big problem. As I understand it when you're deciding on bottom bracket drop/height it's a trade off between having it as low as possible, so you're no higher from the ground than neccessary, but high enough to allow as greater degree of lean as possible before having your pedal scrape the ground, I believe the target degree of possible lean is 25 degrees. I think the reason for having a higher bottom bracket on a track bike is that tracks are banked, so on one side the ground is effectively sloping towards you, meaning the degree of lean before you scrape the floor is reduced. So you raise the bottom bracket to compensate. I think this is also why you slightly reduce the length of the cranks, which I think makes you that tiny bit less efficient, it's a trade off, loss in absolute efficiency so that you can lean more before bottoming out.

    Without thinking too much about what I was doing when I switched from using the Soma for day-to-day duty to the Fort, (as it's a track bike) to start with I fitted it with 165mm cranks, I had 170mm cranks on the Soma. It was very subtle, but I was sure I could feel the loss in leverage going to the 165mm crank, enough so that I swapped them for 170mm cranks. This felt better, but I also at the same time tweaked a number of other things with the bikes fit, so I wouldn't want to definitively claim that the change in crank length was the key issue.

    For road riding you definitely need less clearance to guard against bottoming out when leaning than you do on the track, I'm wondering if some people use shorter cranks to avoid hitting the kerb if you get too close. So I'd say your starting point should be what length cranks do you want and, to ensure you're choosing for the right reason, why? I'm losing my thread a bit here, so I'm going to post this and add some more when I've had a bit of a think about it :)

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