Hey guys are you having fun yet this January?
I mean it's dark, it's rainy, no snow, no bikes, no skiing,
what else to do then to start looking at the pile of things waiting for me this winter.
And God knows that I have at least a few things to keep me busy for the next little while
and close to the top of the pile I have two boxes that say this: 5DEV
Today is kind of a brown day let's pick the brown box see what this is about [Music]
And if you guessed that the brown box was for cranks kudos to you!
Now these are rather unique and in this video I'm gonna take a look not only at the specs
but the build, the compatibility with other existing components,
weight and everything else that you might want to know.
I read somewhere that these cranks were sexy and exotic
and that's definitely true just by looking at their design.
And even though we haven't heard about 5DEV before,
this is a division of 5th Axis, a company that have been doing CNC machining since 2004
for a lot of Aerospace and medical industry,
but the idea of an engineering company doing mountain biking components is not new.
I'm going to bring in front of you 9point8, my fellow Canadians, because that's who they are:
a whole bunch of engineers that love mountain biking and they started 9.8 to design some cool products.
By the way this is Slack-R from 9.8, I had a video about it last winter
and if you look in the description the discount code for this might still work.
Back to our cranks, the precision, the quality, the finish is absolutely stunning!
These are the Trail/Enduro cranks for which they have a custom version as well.
but they also make a few specific e-bike models.
These are CNC'd from a large piece of aluminum so they are offering us a lot of options, length options for the these cranks.
Mine are 165mm, they go all the way up to 175mm long
however on this end, even though on the box it shows 155mm, on their website you're gonna see all the way down to 135mm!
The finish of my cranks is black but they also have one in raw color that looks really, really nice.
These are designed and manufactured in California and if you flip over to the other end of the box you're gonna see the part number.
These cranks are built very similar to The Race Face NEXT Ror NEXT SL,
you have the crank arms and you have a separate spindle.
Spindle length is available for Boost and Superboost and interestingly
when it comes to the diameter of the spindle you see here two options: one is 29mm, one is 30mm.
Usually high-end cranks like RACEFACE use a 30mm spindle and the associated bottom bracket.
As for 29mm, that stands for the 28.99mm of SRAM DUB
so if you have a crank set that already uses a DUB bottom bracket you can replace it easily with one of these fancy and sexy 5DEV cranks!
That might sound like a lot of options but usually vendors simplify the ordering process
and shout out to Bikecomponents.ca for providing me this crankset to take a look at.
These cranks are machined to the exact length they have to be and you see the length again here on the back .
Also you see that these are made out of 7075 aluminum, probably part number, and made proudly in the USA!
At this end you're gonna see a pre-load adjuster that definitely feels premium
when compared to what SRAM uses even though the concept is exactly the same.
Spindle shape is very similar to the one of SRAM,
the only big difference difference here being obviously the fact that you're gonna have to attach the spindle on both ends
using an 8mm HEX key as specified right here on the cap
you also see 40 Nm as the torque necessary.
That is identical to what SRAM DUB requires both in terms of tool and torque,
and if you want to know how to install or remove cranks like this I have a video I'm going to make sure to link it up in the corner.
And another thing that's identical between SRAM DUB cranks and 5DEV
is the way they attach their chainring. SRAM cranks usually come with the chainring, 5DEV doesn't
however in the box you have the 3 bolts needed to attach your chainring, you also have a couple of pedal washers by the way,
and you can install a 5DEV chainring, yes they make chain rings as well,
you see the 3mm offset for Boost but because it's the same 3-bolt interface
that also means that you can install SRAM chainrings on the same crankset
and if it happens that you have a 6mm offset chainring like this one is,
you can make these available for non-Boost bikes, believe it or not!
As you would probably expect by now the machining of the 5DEV chainrings is top notch,
you see this is a 32T round, they also have ovals similar to what absoluteBlack have been doing for a long while.
Also, if you look at the tooth profile, the absoluteBlack is specific to Shimano 12 speed, this model anyway,
their tooth profile is universal, meaning that it can be used with Shimano 12 speed or SRAM 12 speed drivetrains.
That's a lot of details about these cranks, I don't think I missed much,
but one thing that I didn't mention is definitely weight, what's the weight of these aluminum cranks?
Cranks by themselves come up to 418 grams
if you add a 32T round chainring that's 480g.
If you add the needed hardware and the washers it comes up to 488 grams.
Now for aluminum crank and chainring this is definitely impressive!
These guys have done an amazing job carving out enough material from here to make these very competitive.
Did I mention that these are aluminum cranks and they are lighter than the XTR produced by the big Shimano?
Unfortunately I haven't had the chance to ride these cranks but people talk about the perfect mix between stiffness and compliance.
I don't know how this black finish it's gonna look like with a bit of wear but they do have that raw color, it might be a better option.
Pricing is definitely way up there, but if you were to buy XTR or XX1 that wouldn't be any different
plus I don't think you're gonna get too many bragging rights in 2023 from installing an XX1 drivetrain
as opposed to using 5Dev cranks.
So what do you guys think? Are you interested in something like this?
Would you buy 5DEV cranks for a new build over the winter?
Let me know in the comments below, also let me know if you have any questions.
Hope you like this and if you did don't forget to like, subscribe, and comment,
and until next time hope you see you folks on the trails.
Cheers guys, cheers!