Torno, the world's fastest crank

The crank is one of the most complex parts for aerodynamics; the leading edge of your shape becomes the trailing edge 180 degrees later, you have the major influence of the forward speed and the minor influence of the rotational speed, your feet spin by, the frame is right there, the chain runs over the chainring and can’t really be changed aerodynamically, etc.

Our best aero shape was a knife-like 12mm wide at the pedal, significantly thinner than anything else in existence (cranks are usually 15-17mm at the pedal end). In the other direction, our desired profile was much deeper than usual.

The transition to the spider is another headache area. For structural and stiffness reasons, we want the spider to be integrated with the crank arm and fibers running through both. Yet we also want the chainring to be separated spatially from the drive-side crank arm (not one blended shape) to avoid aerodynamic blockage. The Torno spider offers exactly that and works in unison with the dedicated Wolf Tooth aero rings.

Four years ago, we decided to bring the production of our high-end carbon parts back to Italy, starting with the Torno crank. Today, we have the most advanced factory for making the most complex bike parts at our new headquarters near Milan.

With a combination of automation and manual labor, this is where we produce the Torno from scratch. That means raw carbon fiber and resins come in, and after a series of proprietary technologies and with a lot of craftsmanship, the world’s most beautiful cranks (if we may say so ourselves) ship out to you.

Thanks to this in-house manufacturing, the Torno is the world’s lightest aero crank despite also being the thinnest and having the lowest Q-factor. That simply would not be possible anywhere else.