ummm, you should get some more knowledge before posts like this. Shimano has innovated more in the bike biz than any other company, period. I'm not a Shimano fanboy, but have you ever heard of index shifting? You know, like when you shift and it clicks and you are in the next gear. Shimano. Or trigger shifters or integrated brake/shift levers (road and mountain) or cassette hubs or hollow-forged cranks, etc. Now the Hollow Tech 2 cranks aren't original and they surely didn't borrow design from the POS sweet wings cranks. It mostly came from Bullseye cranks.syadasti said:Sonny, Shimano doesn't have any original thoughts period - the crank system was around 10 years before Shimano had them on the market...
Sweetparts had their steel 2-piece version (sweetwings) in the mid nineties with external outboard bearings - they weighed 5 grams more than "innovative" "new" xtr (haha, shimano innovate - yeah right!). They were some of the stiffest cranks you could buy then - I had a pair on my 95 Marin Indian Firetrail. I traded them to a LBS owner in 97 or 98 for free brand new interloc tubular steel cranks when I got a frame they wouldn't fit. They also had a ti version, but I don't remember the weight. They were very labor intensive, had some teething issues, and Sweetparts went out of business