Ask yourself how often you use your granny ring in a cross country race? In reality probably hardly ever. With this in mind FSA have developed a two ring mountain bike chainset.

A standard crankset comes with 22/32/44 size chainrings, this one comes with either 29/42 or 29/44 sized rings. The crank arm and spider is constructed in a single piece (monocoque) from carbon fibre resulting in a light stiff and strong body. The whole thing weighs 694 grams including rings and bottom bracket, 76 grams lighter than the triple ring version and Shimano’s range topping XTR crankset. The bottom bracket is a work of art and features ceramic ball bearings to provide a smooth and durable platform for the cranks to spin on.

Our test set is the 29/44 version.  We have noticed that we now spend a lot more time in the big ring (therefore going faster) as the middle ring is that much smaller.  Similarly we haven’t really suffered from the lack of the granny ring as the smaller middle ring gives you that much more scope.  Also as the chain doesn’t have to move accross three rings you can actually move accross the whole cassette in either ring.
In practise these are fantastic. Ultra light and smooth they are a great upgrade to any bike. The finish is a work of art with the graphic from the crankarms unusually continuing into the rings, very nice indeed. We had no problems with the lack of a middle ring, infact we wonder why more manufacturers don’t make these! SRAM have just introduced a similar set to their XX groupset and if the rumour mill is to be believed, we will see them from competitors in 2010.  In the mean time the bar has been set very high by FSA.

RRP €564. Available from all good retailers including the Cycle Inn and Chain Reaction Cycles.