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asilvertouch on the Shimano Saint crankset
Shimano’s Saint lineup is targeted at the freeride and downhill markets and every component in the group is designed to meet the rigourous demands that gravity-assisted biking places on gear. asilvertouch ‘zine has a long-term review of the Shimano Saint crankset that does a good job of showing how well the Saints hold up to a long season of abuse on the race circuit.
If you haven’t seen these things in person, you’ll probably be surprised when you eventually stumble across a set, because the Saint crank arms are absolutely huge. As mentioned in the review, the Saints are amazingly stiff and most riders won’t be able to bend or damage them, even under the most extreme conditions. At the same time, if you do damage the crank’s spider or the drive-side crank arm, you’ll be on the hook for the entire right-side setup — something you can avoid by running Race Face’s Diabolous cranks. I’m not saying that this ‘feature’ makes the Diabolous a more desirable product, it’s just something to keep in mind when laying down the cash for a new set of cranks.