Praxis to launch complete Turn Zayante M30 road chainsets

Praxis Works are about to launch a new chainset called the Zayante M30 through their Turn sister brand. The system has a 30mm-diameter aluminium axle, wide-stance bearings, hollow-armed cranks and a forged spider.

Now, before you say, “Not another BB standard,” it’s not quite like that. Well, it kind of is, but you can fit it to a whole lot of different bikes. Frame designers don’t need to do anything new here.

“Turn came from our work with Praxis and developed into its own brand,” says Adam Haverstock of Praxis. “Our goal was to have two new offerings – one road, one mountain bike – that offer big bangs for the bucks. The road one is at Shimano Ultegra level.

“This isn’t vendored out, we don’t buy the cranks from someone down the street and do our own shaping, it’s not open mould, this is our own method. This forging never leaves our factory. It’s all done in-house so we can maintain quality and keep the price down.”

The Zayante M30 chainset has a 30mm-diameter axle – it’s like a BB30 system in that respect – rather than the 24mm axle you get with Shimano HollowTech, for instance. It will install in BSA English threaded frames, with a conversion for a BB30 or PF30 frame, and with a conversion for Specialized OSBB frames (both the carbon OSBB, 2010-13 and alloy OSBB).

Whichever of these frames you have, you buy the same chainset, then you buy the correct bottom bracket for your frame separately. The idea is that you get a proper bottom bracket for each of these frame types, rather than using plastic shims/adaptors. 

Even if you have a BB30 or PF30 frame, the 6808 bearings sit externally in cups rather than internally as they usually would.

“We don’t subscribe to either of those standards. We took the very well known collet system of the Praxis Conversion BB [where the two bearings are connected via an aluminium shell] and put a 6806 bearing outboard. It’s the same conversion collet system that people have grown to love but with an outboard 6806 bearing and a 30mm aluminium spindle [axle].”

That all means that the same chainset will fit most frames, although not Cervélo’s BBright standard, for example. Praxis are currently working on another version for frames from the likes of Giant that are built for a BB86 system. They expect to add that within the next 12-15 months.

The chainset will feature Praxis Works cold-forged chainrings. Praxis reckon that these are harder and tougher than CNC machined rings because the high pressure from the cold forging process aligns the aluminium grain.

Turn report that the new system will shortly be installed as OEM spec on a major launch from a big-name brand with aftermarket models to follow. We don’t yet have a UK price.

For more info go to praxiscycles.com and keep your eye the website of UK distributor Upgrade.