FSA K-Force Carbon 2x9 on Mach 4

I've been trying the FSA K-force 3x9 cranks on my 429. I'm running into a problem tossing the chain to the inside of the small ring in certain situations. This may be an installation error on my part, and the 429/crank combo is at the LBS right now trying to figure out where the problem is. I didn't run into this problem with the build kit Shimano XT crankset. I hesitate to mention this as a problem, as I haven't resolved the issue to know if there is a problem or just a knucklehead error on my part.

Pivot's site does say that Shimano, RaceFace and FSA cranks are supported.

I just built up my 429 with a 2X9 drivetrain. I was first using a XT front derailleur and I had some rubbing when in the 11 and 13 out back and the 36 up front. So I tried a SLX front derailleur, the one specifically designed to use with a 22-36 crank. Perfect shifting, no rub.
I run that with a short cage rear derailleur and a Blackspire Bashguard. It saves a little weight along with a shorter chain.

Crank it

We've tested our bikes here at Pivot with FSA, Shimano and Race Face and haven't had any issues with any of them. They all run the same chainline, more or less, so that isn't the issue. We also machine our frames so that the front derailleur mounts exactly the same in relation to the bb/crank -- every time. We check this on every frame before it leaves the building (one of 26 things we check on every Pivot that goes out.)

I don't know all the details, obviously, but it very well could be that the chain was slightly worn to the Shimano rings before being used with the FSA crank. Have you tried a new chain? FSA rings are different than Shimano and this may well solve the problem.

-Adam @ Pivot

Thanks for the input Adam. Looks like a new crank is in my future.

kstine71 said:

I've been trying the FSA K-force 3x9 cranks on my 429. I'm running into a problem tossing the chain to the inside of the small ring in certain situations. This may be an installation error on my part, and the 429/crank combo is at the LBS right now trying to figure out where the problem is. I didn't run into this problem with the build kit Shimano XT crankset. I hesitate to mention this as a problem, as I haven't resolved the issue to know if there is a problem or just a knucklehead error on my part.

Pivot's site does say that Shimano, RaceFace and FSA cranks are supported.

Click to expand...

I'm going to try swapping the middle ring from the XT to the FSA crank and see what happens...

-Dustin @ PC&F