Saint Cranks and Rear Derailleur-Abused by Tyler

诺亚 · 发表于 2005-11-19 09:01

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align=left><I>So by now, most of you out there are very much aware of Shimano’s SAINT line up of burly, Freeride components. The SAINT line up came about because of the demand for more abuse ready parts (i.e. cranks, derailleurs, brakes and hubs) for the Freeride and Downhill markets. <a href="http://www.ridesaint.com/" target="_blank" >SAINT</A> answered the call and has been delivering for 2 seasons now. I put on a new set of 170 mm cranks and hooked up a short cage rear derailleur to my rear Deemax wheel this season and this is what the results were:</I> </P>
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align=left>After running a set of SAINT cranks on my last bike from last season, I knew that I wanted to run them again. I also have been running Shimano road rear derailleurs on my play bikes for a few seasons, but the SAINT rear mech had me keen to try another option. Well since I have been running a rear 135x10mm Deemax off and on for the past 3 years and due to the fact Mavic makes an axle kit to run SAINT rear derailleurs with their wheels, I would go this route. <BR><BR>
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<TD class=newstxt></TD></TR></TABLE><BR><BR>The axle swap took me a few minutes longer then it should of, but really with out instructions, I feel that I did it in a timely manner. This was a really nice option for those of us out there that may have a nice rear wheel and not want to part with it, in order to run a new rear derailleur. More companies are making SAINT compatible hubs, so look into it if you are thinking about the switch and don’t want to go full on and do the hubs too.<BR><BR>The cranks install so easy!! I am definitely a huge fan of the direction in which many crank manufacturers are going with the outboard bearing BBs. This makes installation and removal of the crank arms so easy and also the replacement of BBs (if needed) is a breeze too. The SAINT bb threaded in fine with a little grease on the threads and then a simple lining up of the crank arm and Voila!<BR><BR>
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<TD><a href="http://www.pinkbike.com/modules/photo/?op=view&image=662402" target="_blank" ><IMG src="http://photo.pinkbike.com/photo/662/med/mpbpic662402.jpg" border=0> </A></TD></TR>
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<TD class=newstxt></TD></TR></TABLE><BR><BR>Now that I told you how the parts went on, how about we turn the page and get into how they worked on the trail.<BR><BR>First off SAINT cranks are burly and stiff, just look at them and you know what I’m talking about. They are lighter then going the Chromo/BMX crank route and easily as strong. Shimano even goes as far to say that the SAINTs are 100% stiffer than their own XTR level cranks. Other note worthy items on the cranks is the steel pedal insert so that you can bash your pedals on rocks all day and not worry about the aluminum threads twisting at the insert.<BR><BR>
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<TD class=newstxt></TD></TR></TABLE><BR>My cranks have found themselves back and forth between my hard tail and the Demo 8 test bike a lot this season and were on pretty much every road trip I did. The arms are more then true, despite the rocks in Nelson doing their best to scar them. <BR><BR>
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<TD><a href="http://www.pinkbike.com/modules/photo/?op=view&image=662399" target="_blank" ><IMG src="http://photo.pinkbike.com/photo/662/med/