Short Cranks, Compact Chain Rings, Advantages? (Page 2)

Happy to see this thread has generated so much good discussion on the topic of short cranks.

For many of the reasons sighted here are the same reasons I decided to go for the shorties. After my last Triathlon in late Oct. having posted one of my best race times to date. I could only maintain the aggressive dropped (in the drops, no aero bars) position for about 6-8 miles, then I would have to come up to the top of the bars for a break and then get back down into position. It felt like my thighs where pounding into my chest and the next day after the race I was getting intermittent sharp stabbing pains in the right pelvic area.

Also I could never effectively push past the mid cogs (19-17 on 53) on the flats. On the hills/mountains I would hold 23 on the 38 before finally having to drop to the 25 and suffer the rest of eternity. This was my motivation for going compact. I still did not want to make things easy so I opted for the 36 instead of the common paired (50)/34's.

The gentleman whom did my custom crankset mentioned I should also be able to bring the seat up roughly 3/4". I think I will leave the seat alone and do a few test runs on the trainer and see where I feel after that.

So in short, my expectations are: Opening up the hip angle, improved breathing and more effective use of available gearing. 

Also I will post the link to the gentleman whom made my custom cranks. I purchased them mid -week, he machined them over the weekend and I had them on the following Tuesday. Great communication and excellent craftsmanship. He started out with 180's and and drill/tapped them to custom length, cut off the excess and gave the ends a soft rounded brushed aluminum finish.

Bikesmith Design & Fabrication - Short Cranks

I was able to quickly jump on and get in a few minutes this morning, first thing I noticed was I needed to raise the seat as has been mentioned; but even then I could already feel the difference with the seat as is. Going to raise it up 20mm (2cm) and do a fresh FTP test just to get a sense of how much difference it makes.