Cranks are an instrumental part of riding, after all they are what you drive all the power through so it makes sense to get a decent crankset. However, what you may not realize is that this doesn’t have to be a massively expensive purchase.
Shimano are very good with their trickle down approach to their technology, which means that their entry level Deore products are actually very, VERY good without carrying a huge price tag. Knowing this, I thought I’d save myself a couple of quid and pick up a brand new Shimano Deore M615 Crankset for just over £50.
Initial Impressions
I’m not going to lie, I was surprised. I was expecting something much heavier than what I got. According to Shimano these cranks weigh between 935g and 914g – now I didn’t crack out the scales, but I wouldn’t be surprised if these figures were actually accurate.
As with all HollowTech 2 stuff, these were incredibly easy to install and I encountered zero problems fitting it to my bike. It was probably a half hour job at most, which would have been quicker if I kept my tools slightly more organised – I misplaced my BB tool.
Shimano Deore M615 Crankset Review
To be completely honest, this is pretty much a fit and forget jobbie. It does exactly what you want it to, there’s no noticeable flex and it isn’t really light enough to make much of a difference to the overall ride. That said, it is a solid set of cranks that don’t cost the world and work as expected – can’t ask much more really.
The decals did rub off really quickly – first two rides – but I haven’t gone through to the metal yet and I’ve been riding regularly for about 6 months now. Another slight fault I had was that there wasn’t enough grease in the BB supplied with this crankset, meaning that it made a very horrible grinding noise until I got home to sort it. Servicing a HollowTech2 BB is an incredibly easy fix to do yourself, check it out:
That’s not me by the way, just a very handy video!
Overall
If you want something cheap and cheerful that will do the job and save you money that you can then spend elsewhere, then you won’t go far wrong with the Shimano Deore M615 Crankset. If you’re looking to shave grams or want something that looks mega flashy then you should probably look for something else.
This is simple, functional and affordable – exactly the way we like our bike bits!
