The hidden arm was definitely invented just to make a different look, and we were supposed to think that look was preferable. There's nothing better from a performance standpoint with the hidden arm, and it does indeed make it a TINY bit more work to change a chainring if you are doing things right*, and substantially harder if you are doing things some other way. I think it's a logical and good thing that Rivendell designed Silver cranks with a normal 5-arm setup.
That said, it works out great for me that so many people seem to have such a hard time with hidden bolt cranks, because I've never had a problem with it, and your shared struggles has got to help drive the price down for me. Walking around my garage, there are four bikes with hidden arm Ritcheys, three with hidden arm Sugino, and two with hidden arm Campy. If there are any of you out there at your wits-end about it and want to ship me your unwanted 172.5mm cranks, let me know. Maybe I should do a YouTube to show how to deal with it the right* way? That would probably be pointless because in general it seems that those who have made up their minds that they are terrible seem to have their minds completely made up. There is no question that the hidden arm does not make it EASIER to replace a chainring. It makes it a tiny bit harder. I'd put it on par with tying my shoes. My BOA shoes are the easiest to install onto my feet and extract from my feet. Lace-up shoes are harder to install and harder to extract than BOA shoes. That's a fact. Still, I know how to tie my shoes, and I do include lace-up shoes in my closet. I imagine it would be logical to boycott lace-up shoes and label shoelaces as the worst thing ever, and limit oneself to strictly BOA shoes (and slip-ons). That would be a principled stance. From my perspective, it's a baby and bathwater situation. My guess is that there are three reasons Rivendell designed the Silver cranks with normal 5-arms: 1. their customers vocally complain about the hidden arm 2. there is no performance benefit to the hidden arm 3. the post-forging machining steps are more complicated and costly with the hidden arm There's no reason to make an already expensive product even more expensive by adding a valueless feature that your customers will bellyache about. I've got guesses at how and why people struggle with the hidden arm, and it's probably a combination of 4 things. Bill Lindsay El Cerrito, CA *by right, I mean the way that was obvious and self-evident when I first ran across them in the late 1980s, but it seems what was obvious and self evident to me is not universal. On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 11:27:41 PM UTC-8 Joe Bernard wrote: > "Probably too much of a pain to deal with." > > Precisely. It's not in the product descriptions anymore but at the > introduction of Silvers much was made of how fiddly that hidden chainring > bolt is when installing/swapping rings on the Sugino cranks Riv sold. As a > many-years owner of many 'hidden arm' Suginos, I can attest they are a pain > in the patooty. > > On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 8:57:20 PM UTC-8 R. Alexis wrote: > >> Was walking past one of my bikes the other day and thought the Sugino AT >> cranks and the Specialized Flag cranks bare some resemblance to the >> upcoming Silver 2 cranks. On another note, I was surprised that Rivendell >> didn't go with a hidden arm crank ala Ritchey. Probably too much of a pain >> to deal with. >> >> Thanks, >> >> Reginald Alexis >> >> On Wednesday, October 25, 2023 at 3:30:58 PM UTC-5 Bill Lindsay wrote: >> >>> I stumbled upon the News Blog on rivbike.com and was glancing at >>> Roman's Legolas. He and I ordered ours in the same size at the same time, >>> so I always regard his as the twin sibling to mine. >>> >>> Anyway, there's a sneak peek of a lighter, road-ish, Silver2 crankset. >>> Looks pretty cool! >>> >>> https://www.rivbike.com/blogs/news/romans-57cm-legolas-865cm-pbh >>> >>> Bill Lindsay >>> El Cerrito, CA >>> >> -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/811af3a8-ddb6-4271-af46-0d49f6059e7dn%40googlegroups.com.
