Lets get rid of the 3 piece crank permanently

I

Irish John

Guest
Is anyone out there happy with these 3 piece cranks being fobbed on customers who exclusively use the kits for cruiser bikes that cannot take a 3 piece crank without an expensive adaptor? Then the lovely 1\2" block pedals from a Schwinn wont fit the crank arms so we have to lose our nice pedals and buy inferior 9\16" ones. The problems and expense are totally unnecessary when the old 1 piece crank fitted so well on any cruiser with a 1 piece bottom bracket and didn't involve extra expense. To add insult to injury the 3 piece looks so disgusting when installed. By all means offer the 3 piece as an optional extra but not as standard because it isn't what is required 90% of the time.
Has anyone got any ideas as to how Grubee can be made to understand that people don't like these silly cranks and to reinstate the 1 piece as standard in all kits?
Am I right when I say that Birddog got Grubee to make this change and if so why can't Birddog pull their finger out and get the situation rectified?
How can a Company in Montana stuff up the lives of all Grubee kit buyers worldwide? Lets get this injustice fixed and lets get Birddog to fix it.
 
I personally don't mind the 3 piece. I agree it lacks a little in the aesthetics department but I think the ability to use higher quality parts including cranks, pedals and bearings makes it an option. And now that we (SBP) are sourcing our own conversion kits it is not that expensive to change ($20 including the bearing set). I do agree though that it should be an option. Let the customer make the choice.

I think the long term solution though is a smaller, and better, gear box that will allow the use of a normal width BB assembly. Then we will all be happy.
 
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They both have their own place & it's good to give ppl a choice,however i'de like to see the 1 piece become more widely known & MUCH more readily available ...........buy/stock more 1 piece's.
 
I personally don't mind the 3 piece. I agree it lacks a little in the aesthetics department but I think the ability to use higher quality parts including cranks, pedals and bearings makes it an option. And now that we (SBP) are sourcing our own conversion kits it is not that expensive to change ($20 including the bearing set). I do agree though that it should be an option. Let the customer make the choice.

I think the long term solution though is a smaller, and better, gear box that will allow the use of a normal width BB assembly. Then we will all be happy.

A normal width BB is not going to happen on the 4-stroke Ghost unless it is a special HT type 4-stroke which wouldn't be worth buying cos it would be the quality of the HT 2-stroke. Your theory about choice of bearings is not really correct. The $60 French adaptor comes with it's own bearings so there is no choice but I've been replacing the bearings on the 1 piece with heavy duty larger bearings because the standard Schwinn bearings cannot take the increased force caused by the extra leverage from the wide crank. I have never used the bearings that come with the kits. To say that the 3 piece increases your choice re crank arms and pedals is not true about pedals because the good pedals that came with a good cruiser cannot be used for reasons stated above and you cannot buy aftermarket Schwinn block pedals so have to buy something inferior. Maybe it increases your choice of crank arms but why would a sane person put expensive alloy crank arms on that disgusting crank shaft. From everything you say it seems to show pretty clearly that the 3 piece greatly diminishes your choice and puts you to great expense. The one piece is strong with nice long crank arms and takes the lovely Schwinn pedals off their expensive bike brands. The heavy duty bearings are only a couple of dollars and sometimes a shop will do a straight swap for your old bearings.
But by all means offer the 3 piece as an optional extra because the pubertal novices who mount these motors in their MTB will need it but do not make it the kit standard when it doesn't fit the cruiser type frame that is suppose to host the 4-stroke. That is what I'm saying and seeing as Birddog caused the problem why can't Birddog fix the problem. Why can't they appologise for the trouble they have caused worldwide?
 
We have 100 1pc cranks coming soon with the next order, All the next mounting kits coming on that container are coming with 1pc instead of 3.

The reasoning behind the 3pc is we tried to make the kit a more universal kit as you can always reduce size but not enlarge, so we figured it would benefit the people but instead it has created more of a problem with SOME. All kits in the future will include 1pc cranks after these kits are gone, But I'm thinking by then it will be G4 time.

Why are we using a company name that has no relevance? It's B-E.com who is the vendor not BDD.com
 
Don Grube calls them Birddog so that is the name I used. It was also the name on my credit card statement when I bought stuff from B-E.Com.
It is not just an inconvenience to SOME Biketec, it is an inconvenience to by far the greater majority accross the globe.
It has been a total disaster and has cost customers dearly but at least it is now being very slowly rectified. Maybe you will order enough cranks this time so those unfortunates who had to install the 3 piece during the disaster period will be able to replace them. The 5 extra one piece cranks I bought from you last year went a long time ago and it took me a long time to find the only factory in China that makes them.
 
One or three I don't care. The sprocket that came with fits like **** on the shaft, of course it could just be that I don't know what I am doing.

We drilled a hole and put an allen screw in the sprocket to get it to tighten up. Not all that happy with the little short crank arms that came with it either. Much prefer the arms that came with the shift kit.
 
One or three I don't care. The sprocket that came with fits like **** on the shaft, of course it could just be that I don't know what I am doing.

We drilled a hole and put an allen screw in the sprocket to get it to tighten up. Not all that happy with the little short crank arms that came with it either. Much prefer the arms that came with the shift kit.

You say "one or three I don't care" but it seems you do care about those ridiculous short crank arms that make you look silly when you try and pedal fast and make pedalling up hill 30% harder. I certainly care about being treated like some idiot who would accept that sort of crud without protesting.
 
OK, I do care that the arms were short.

The SBP arms are not too short, they are just the right size. So when I order the shift kit for this bike, they will work out just fine.
 
That's Ok for a shift kit but shift kits make the bike illegal in a lot of places because they constitute gears on the engine. Just ask in any reputeable bike shop and show them the short crank and ask them if they think it is any good and then tell us what they tell you. I know they wont tell you that the crank is anything but a useless piece of junk and certainly isn't designed to be pedalled. I think you might have your balaclava on backwards or maybe you have a different crank to the one the rest of us get with the Grubee kit. This thread is about 4-strokes and SBP shifter kits don't fit 4-strokes.
 
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