No four alphabets can send weight weenies into a frenzy like KCNC.
Search any weight weenie forums out there and you're sure to find pictures of KCNC stuff, be it roadie or mtb, being paraded on weighing scales by their proud gram-counting owners.
Compare the weight loss specs on some lightweight rig, and you're sure as fak to find KCNC parts responsible for bringing down the weight of the bike to some ludicrously low, almost UCI-illegal, weight.
The KCNC line of bike parts surprisingly also offer tough but lightweight downhill and freeride components as well.
I was in the market for an upgrade for my Shimano XTR crankset for my new Banshee Wildcard freeride bike. After looking at all the run-of-the-mill cranks out there, I knew the KCNC crankset has to be it. My XTRs were fine but I needed something burlier for FR and some light DH duties.
The K-Type FR1 cranks truly looked the part. Mine's 170mm in length to avoid bashing into stuff when the trail gets gnarly.
The crankset comes as a double chainring (32/22T) with a beautiful slim BoneGrinder bash guard.
The arms, spider and bashguard are beautifully CNC'd from 7075AL-T7 aluminium.
The beauty of the crankarms are two long hollowed out tubes inside along the length of the entire arm, reducing the weight and improving fatigue resistance of the arm. This kinda reminds me of my old skool Caramba double barrel crank arms.
The CNC finishing is breathtaking. The CNC's chainrings are precision machined to give a very predictable and confident feel when shifting.
KCNC has it's unique way of engineering the crankset.
Unlike most cranksets, the FR-1 does not have a pipe bottom bracket spindle attached to the the cranks. This spindle is actually incorporated into the BB unit and is made from lightweight Scandium-T7 material! The two ends of the spindle locks on the the arms by KCNC's proprietary 8T (not exactly Octalink) system.
Oversized external bearings keep the BB running smooth and trouble free.
What's the total weight of the whole thing? crankset+bashguard+BB all adds up to only 950g! That's why i consider this an UPGRADE from XTR..
It's got the weightweenie factor any weight weenie will be proud of coupled with a toughness that's actually pretty good to look at too
No comments:
Post a Comment