Bike porn

There's no drive for that. Because of their brand recognition as a technical leader in the road market, they're always going to make sales in the track market. Because the track market is so niche those sales will be relatively insignificant to them overall, and introducing an external bb crankset won't make a significant difference to those sales, so all they have to do is offer a track crankset and maybe tweak it a little bit every few years to make it seem fresh. Further to that, track gets so little media coverage compared to road racing, even if they were to make a top end chainset and get it on every track pro's bike, the increase in publicity would be basically none for them.

What you've described there are reasons for a massive product lifecycle and lack of innovation. But I'm sure Shimano do care that they lose sales to Sugino, just not much.

You think they'd at least have some modern external BB cranks though?

I haven't ridden DA cranks yet so can't say how they compare in ride VS what external BB cranks I do have (rotors and omniums but have also briefly owned on one) I have a pair of DA 7600 cranks on the way for my daily fixed bike.

I'm really interested to see how they compare but I honestly doubt a rider at my level will really feel it much if at all.

If you look at pro track racers - not a single one of them will be using Omniums and I doubt any of them will be on Rotors either. Those who can will be on one piece carbon cranks like the Look ones, or the Team GB ones that appeared in time for the Olympics, but the majority will either be on DA or 75's. There is a reason for this- they are the best and weight is a total non-issue (within reason) on the track.

All anyone cares about at that level is reliability and stiffness

External BBs are stiffer.*

then why is no-one using them?

• though I've no idea what kind of axle diameter the GB and Look chainsets use.
  

They tried them and kept mashing up the bearings..

^^ because the hole in the frame isn't big enough for fat axles.

:)

That is nonsense

Ah I see you ninja smiley edit.

^^^^ this too.

Don't know how Greipel gets away with it though.

Why is this an issue with external bearing BBs?

The bearings are bigger and further appart. Which is betterer.

Hopefully RPM or tester will be along shortly to enlighten us.

Here are some illustrations in the meantime...

Well its well known that externals dont last so long. But why?

Why?

Because they're made by SRAM?

Outside the frame= more prone to chemitrail damage

oh please.. That thing is an eyesore.

...more prone to chemitrail damage

We've done a few 'curry night rides' recently. Chemitrail is a real thing if you ride home on the back of the group.

"Does anyone know why DA track cranks still look like cranks as opposed to an experiment in 3D wankery like their road counterparts?"

Dura Ace track is predominantly made for the NJS Keirin market.

and other hipster wankers

I was just assuming they were reluctant to change, every time people ask what cranks DA OR SG75 tester says to buy some modern ones :P

Outside the frame= more prone to chemitrail damage

Well they sit inside cups, as the internals sit inside the frame.

If anything the way the crankarms sit flush to give preload. Leaves them more covered.

The problem with externals for track is that the cups can't support the bearing as effectively as a cartridge BB and BB shell combined, so they wobble around, grinding themselves to bits when we are talking Hoy levels of torque*

• so the internet tells me.
  
  

BB30 for track would be an interesting solution. As would the 24mm internal standards (BB86?)