Ridge Crankset

The axle is 24mm — the long-standing Shimano-style size — so it takes any 24mm bottom bracket that suits your frame: threaded BSA in either a 68mm or 73mm shell, or PF92 press-fit. Measure the shell rather than going by the model year of the bike. 68mm and 73mm look alike until you put a rule across them, and that 5mm is the difference between a crankset that spins freely and one that binds.

Shorter cranks clear the ground better and are easier to spin; longer ones give a little more leverage at low cadence. Thinking has drifted towards shorter in recent years, and 170mm suits most riders on a trail bike — particularly if you pedal through rough ground and have clipped a rock more than once. Take 175mm if you are tall, if you like grinding a big gear seated, or simply if that is what you have ridden happily for years. The difference is small and habit counts for a lot.

Yes. It uses a 104mm BCD — the most common four-bolt pattern in mountain biking — so replacements are easy to come by and you are not tied to us for them. If you do want ours, the Solo Narrow-Wide Chainring is a 104 BCD ring with a narrow-wide tooth profile, which holds the chain considerably better than a plain ring on a 1X setup.

667g for the crank arms, plus 42g to 52g for the chainring depending on size. That puts the Ridge squarely in the middle of the alloy field — heavier than carbon, and no one will pretend otherwise. What you get for those grams is forged AL6061 on a carbon steel axle, which shrugs off the rock strikes and crash loads that finish a carbon arm, and costs a fraction as much to replace when something finally does go wrong.

Start from your terrain rather than the number. A smaller ring buys easier climbing gears at the cost of top end; a bigger one does the reverse. 32T suits steep, technical ground, 34T is the middle where most trail bikes settle, and 36T is for flatter, faster riding or anyone who spins out on descents. Because this is a 1X drivetrain the ring shifts your whole range at once, so check the largest sprocket on your cassette before dropping a size — the easier climbing gear you are after may already be there.