Home > MTB

Review: Race Face Era carbon fibre cranks

Canadian brand adds bash guard and a lifetime warranty with crash coverage

Race Face is approaching 30 years of making mountain bike parts on, and for North Shore riding. As part of that anniversary, the brand is launching a new carbon fibre crankset named, appropriately, Era.

With the Next SL, Race Face already has one of the lightest carbon fibre cranks on the market. With Era, Race Face aims to provide the same experience, but tough enough to span trail, all-mountain and enduro riding. Lightweight and enduro don’t always mix well, but Race Face is confident enough in Era that it’s backing the new carbon fibre crank with a new lifetime warranty.

We’ve put a good few months into the Era cranks and are, at this point, impressed with the lightweight carbon fibre parts. The added plate looks distinctive but is already doing its job.

A stainless steel wear guard sets the Era cranks apart – and keeps them intact. Photo: Race Face

Race Face: a new Era

The Era crankset is differs from the Next SL crankset in a few ways, as is obvious just looking at the crank. Most obviously with the new stainless steel wear plate that sits mix crankshaft. The steel plate is intended to prevent damage from footwear while also adding some impact protection from stray rocks or in crashes.

Race Face already had a more gravity-focused carbon crankset, the Next R. With Era, the brand shaves the weight down to an impressive 483 grams, even with the added steel wear plate. Since we’re counting grams, that weight includes 170 mm crank arms, boots, a 136 spindle, 32-tooth chainring and all washers and spacers and hardware required to install the crankset.

Part of the added toughness is a redesigned pedal insert, now bonded directly to the carbon layup. Race Face says this makes it the strongest and most durable carbon fibre crank its ever created and, as mentioned, is backing that claim with a lifetime warranty.

Details and pricing

Era also moves to a 176-mm Q-Factor (including pedal washers) for the Era cranks, intended to make pedaling more natural. The cranks have a 52-mm chainline (with a 136-mm spindle), which can be moved out to 55-mm using Race Face’s Shimano 12-speed Wide direct mount chainring.

Speaking of direct mount, Race Face sticks with the Cinch design for Era. This is both easy to use, if you have the tools, and allows riders to change spindle lengths and chainrings to make matching the Era cranks to any frame – or moving between frames – easy.

Race Face offers the Era cranks in three lengths: 165mm, 170mm and 175mm. There are a full seven colorways and eight different pedal boot colours, so you can mix and match to personalize your bike.

You can join Race Face’s new Era for $650.00. That’s $50 more than the lighter, XC-focused Next SL cranks, and about $100 more than SRAM’s comparable offering, XO1. But that price is for an enduro-rated crankset that comes in at XC weight and is backed by a lifetime warranty. Shimano still doesn’t make a carbon fibre crankset so, for carbon purists who want to run Shimano without mixing drivetrains, RF is a good option if not necessarily a cheap one.

Race Face Lifetime Warranty: what is a lifetime, anyway?

Wherever the rise of carbon fibre has led in mountain biking, the promise of lifetime warranties has followed. Cranks are no different, though brands all define “lifetime” differently.

With the introduction of Era, Race Face is adding its own take. It is defining “Lifetime” as “the expected usable life of our products being ridden regularly.” Crucially, it also includes crashes, not just defects in manufacturing. That’s a bit vaguer than a set-term warranty, so I reached out to Race Face for some clarification. The product team wasn’t keen on setting a rigid timeframe for the expected lifetime of a Era crankset, but did say this:

“If you have been riding you bike regularly and haven’t worn out and replaced most other parts on your bike and you have an issue with a Race Face product on that bike it is covered, doesn’t matter if it is 2 years old or 10 years old. If you have ridden a few bikes into the ground and have swapped the same Race Face part between those bikes and it has held up for years of abuse and now you have an issue, it feels like you have gotten the useful life out of the product,” but also added that it might still be covered, depending on circumstances. 

Crashes included. Intentional damage not

Race Face is also extending this new, crashes-included lifetime warranty to the majority of its components (dropper posts and grips are excluded). That means products will have different warranty periods. To give one crank-adjacent example, if you crash and damage a chainring that is covered. If you ride enough that you wear the chainring teeth to the point where they barely hold onto the chain, that’s normal wear-and-tear and is not covered.

With crashes now covered. It is, in a sense, a good-faith warranty. Meaning Race Face doesn’t cover intentional damage. And really, it shouldn’t. There’s no way covering intentional damage should be considered a reasonable expectation for any product. In that vein, it also doesn’t cover accidental damage not related to riding or any damage caused during installation. The Lifetime warranty also only applies to the original owner. If you have more questions about the warranty, which is fair on a $650 component, Race Face has all the details here. But, with crashes included, it’s a pretty solid deal. I have snapped a set of carbon fibre cranks (not Race Face), and it was not a fun experience. Having to pay to replace them on top of that would be less fun.

Ride impressions: Race Face Era crankset

Since picking a set of Era up at the start of August, we’ve had a good few months on the new carbon fibre cranks. So far, they perform exactly as advertised. They are still very light, at 483 grams, and they are still stiff enough that I’ve never noticed any flex while riding.

Race Face’s added wear plate is doing its job well, keeping that area of the cranks looking clean and shiny. In combination with the replaceable pedal boots, a good portion of the carbon fibre is protected from damage. It’s admittedly a bit of a more industrial look than all-carbon but, after months or years of wear, I’m guessing that clean steel will look better than scuffed and scratched carbon fibre. The smaller details, like the move to a larger 3mm bolt on the preload adjuster, are appreciated and make installing the cranks as easy as the Cinch system suggests it should be. There haven’t been any creaking or other issues, despite the added dust of an extended very dry summer in B.C.

Three months isn’t exactly a long-term test for a set of cranks, and winter rain is the next big hurdle for the Eras to withstand. We’ll report back with how that goes, but so far so good. The Era cranks are light and still perform exactly as they should.

Era cranks are available now from Race Face and dealers. As mentioned, they retail for $650.00 in Canada.