One thing to keep in mind is that the cranks you list use different spindle tapers; WI VBC and Velo Orange are JIS, while TA's 5-pin Pro V is ISO. This shouldn't be a deal breaker, but ISO BBs are a little trickier to find. It's also possible, per the late great Sheldon Brown, to swap a JIS spindle for an ISO, and vice versa <http://sheldonbrown.com/bbtaper.html>. You just have to do a little arithmetic to get the chainline right.
Mark's experience is with the WI crank. I'm guessing his Phil Wood BB is fairly new; Phil's recent 119mm BBs are JIS. My experience is with the TA, and its various French rivals (Stronglight 49, Nervar 631), all of which are ISO: I have 5-pin French cranks on four of my bikes, several cranksets in reserve, and a sizeable inventory of TA 6-arm chainrings. For a double chainset, TA recommends their own loose-ball ref:344 ISO spindle, at 114.5mm. Using Sheldon's JIS-ISO conversion factor (ISO crank on JIS spindle length X = ISO crank on ISO spindle length X+4.5mm), the optimum JIS spindle for a double on an British/French/Swiss-thread frame would be 110mm: the recommended 114.5 ISO minus 4.5mm. A lot of this depends on frame specifics, of course. If you have a frame with wider-spaced dropouts, you'll probably need some extra spindle length to prevent the crankarms from chewing up the chainstays. This is particularly important with the French cranks, which are low-Q in large part because the crankarms are nearly parallel to the chainline. A more modern crankset will angle outward specifically to clear the stays. If you have access to a bike kitchen, I think it's worth rummaging around in the box of used BB spindles (every bike kitchen/shop has at least one of these). That way, you can swap spindles several times to fine-tune the length before choosing the exact BB on which to spend money. Even if you're going to use a sealed bearing BB, swapping loose-ball spindles around to assess the clearance/chainline helps to get the length correct before you sink your bucks into something. By way of comparison: Like Mark, I too am using a 119mm Phil Wood BB - but it's an older '70s Phil Wood #3 BB with a classic Campagnolo taper, which splits the difference between JIS and ISO. I'm using it with a 5-pin triple crankset (Nervar cranks, TA rings) on a 1971 Raleigh International. I have 20mm clearance between the crankarm and the chainstay, and 4mm clearance between the inner face of the chainring bolt on the granny and the chainstay near the BB shell. <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-bQgkjSzSLeE/VkTw43Fox0I/AAAAAAAAAN0/niybkg9pkL8/s1600/TA%2BBB%2Bspindle.png> Peter "French drivetrain survivalist" Adler Berkeley, CA/USA On Wednesday, November 11, 2015 at 3:11:04 PM UTC-8, mike gasparino wrote: > > Hi guys, > building up a 2x10 atlantis and looking for recommendations for a double > crankset. I know with the bowed out chain stays the clearance is an issue. > I would love to use the following cranks (WI VBC, TA cyclotouriste, velo > orange, etc. Oh and if anyone has used any of them, what spindle length bb > did you use. Please help get me on the road! > > Michael > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
