Keith Bontrager on Cyclocross Bottom Bracket Height

Historically cyclocross bikes have had higher bottom brackets than road bikes. But do you know why?

Clipless pedals have been the norm for a long time now–longer than cyclocross has been popular in the United States. So most people don’t know that the high bottom bracket was a result of not wanting toe clips to drag in the mud. I’d heard this anecdotally from some old timers, but never saw it verified anywhere until I posted our cyclocross bike video on Twitter and tagged Keith Bontrager.

Keith commented:

The high BB was necessary. They rode with clips and straps. They needed the extra height to avoid contact between the clip and the ground on the first crank revolution after a remount. Their foot wasn't in the clip yet and it was facing down, towards the ground. If the clip dug into the ground and spun the pedal it messed things up badly. Getting back into the pedal was critical, and really hard to do with cross shoes of that era in the mud.

Keith posted three examples of old cross shoes to illustrate. I love these old Duegi cross shoes:



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