Cranks

Quick-change cranks

High-end three-piece cranks

Highly versatile

Carbon/alloy hybrid

Solid gravity cranks

Lightweight triple cranks

Carbon twin ring

Smooth shifting cranks

Crank arms, spider and axle

Light, stiff – and good!

Trail classic with disappointing bottom bracket

Limited edition light yet strong cranks

Easy-off bolts for ISIS cranks

Staggeringly light, stiff & expensive road cranks

Our chosen representative from the dirt-jumping contingent, this three-piece crank from Gusset is known to be one of the strongest cranks on the market

Tough steel cranks that are well worth the money

A good choice if you want a light crank but don’t like carbon

Carbon has been touted as the next big thing in cranksets for a few years now, but the WMB test team remain to be convinced.

The 7050 alloy is cold forged into smoothly flowing 'I beam' cross section arms and spider with a medium walled hollow steel axle that's fixed permanently into the drive side.

Race Face's mid-range XC cranks are purposeful looking units that'll pimp any bike. The cold forged construction is obvious in the largely rough finish

External bottom brackets are great, but the cranks aren't always tough enough for the abuse that some riders dish out. For DMR, though, making tough stuff is what they do.

Despite the amount of long travel suspension bikes blurring the XC/Freeride boundary, there's surprisingly little tough but not overweight componentry to equip them. Race Face's Atlas cranks are bang on, though.

For dirt/jumping, there are three-piece cranks and there are Profile three-piece cranks. Since 1979, Profiles have been the benchmark products in this hard-fought category. The arms are made from tapered 4130 chromoly steel, the 48-

Shimano has already hinted at significant changes for the chainset in its new 2006 group set (more on this next month), but XTR is still king of the heap in lightweight XC terms. The low profile, Hollowtech Duralumin arms are forged in the