crank question.

Inigo Montoya":29t5ivfx said:

topline or first gen. grafton. these are definitely not road cranks as the road ones had 130bcd. these are definitely not tune ones as they look quite different.

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scant":2pm9sq1d said:

do you have a close up pic of the early graftons? what differs from the topline?.. I suspect I have just acquired a early set of graftons..

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Precision Tooling is a family owned machine business that has machined parts from metal for different companies over time. For a period they were the sub-contracting firm making CQP cranks. The relationship with CQP faded and John Trenerry and his father Phil worked out an exciting and stylish design for a crank arm set. Phil's knowledge of metals helped make the arms strong though they appeared delicate. There was initial un-certainty about whether the family should be bold enough to enter the bicycle parts market on their own, under their own name. As it turns out Phil Trenerry had known John Grafton for many years and Grafton's first cantilever brake had been successful. Grafton had been prevailed by others make an entrance in the crank market and the Trenerry's crank held promise though they again were reluctant. The Trenerrys agreed to make the crank they had designed and let Grafton market them. The crankset's popularity and the Grafton name identification lead to immediate market interest. After about a years time we started to be sold the cranks directly from Topline, (which is also known as Precision Tooling), because their verbal contract with Grafton had crumbled. The design remained rightly in the Trenerry hands and they have become very successful using their own name in marketing their own cranks. We've found that generally when splits like this occur, there is usually a problem related to sub- contractors being paid for their work. Have you noticed how similar the Sims cranks are to the last version of Grafton cranks? It's not a well kept secret that Sims was the sub-contractor used to make Grafton cranks after Precision Tooling (Topline)/Grafton relationship ended.

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