Originally Posted by
Jaytron
What are your collective thoughts on FSA chainrings? I think I've asked this before and the general consensus was they were "fine" at what point are they "not good enough"?
There are 3 qualities that you want in a chainring (in order of importance)
- Round
- Strong
- Lightweight
It must be Round and Strong to be good enough. A Round but weak chainring is unacceptable (it will become un-round after a while). A non-round but strong chainring is unacceptable.
When you add lightweight, that is even better...and maufacturers know this and charge you more.
Compare the FSA Pro chainrings with the Sugino ZEN. Both are very round and very strong and feature a solid disc style for strength.
The Zen has material carefully removed from the back side to add the "lightweight" component. This process costs more to do.
Compare that to the rear of the solid FSA:
So, Round and Strong are good enough. Lightweight is a bonus.
There are other great chainring options out there. I just used those two as examples that look and function very similarly but one is double the cost of the other.