As well as the Chub hubs that we brought you details of recently, Petaluma, California-based The Hive is also responsible for Fifteen.G chainsets, coming soon to the UK via importers Jungle Products.

At first glance the Fifteen.G doesn’t look particularly out of the ordinary. The arms are forged 7050 aluminium, but without any of the hollow cleverness you’ll find from larger manufacturers. The clever bit, though, is the axle. For a start, it’s big, at 30mm outside diameter. To accommodate this, The Hive has mounted BB30-size bearings in HTII-style outboard cups . As the cutaway shows, the axle certainly does a good job of almost completely filling the space inside a conventional BB shell. It’s also anodised green, even though you can’t see it once fitted.

The drive side crankarm is permanently attached to the axle in the now-familiar manner, while there’s more uniqueness at the interface with the other crank. The Fifteen.G crank uses a tapered polygon interface – more specifically, a P3G polygon designed to the DIN32711 shaft coupling standard, as used in tank drivetrains apparently. The interface is said to give “100% surface contact, eliminating fretting corrosion”, rather than relying on the square edges of splines.

Fifteen.G cranks will shortly be available in singlespeed (32 or 43t plus bashguard, 666g, £169.99) or triple (44/32/22, 711g, £195.99) versions in various lengths. The BB is sold separately at £32.99 – you can fit it with a regular (albeit quite large) socket, or there’s a specific £20 tool. More details from www.bythehive.com or www.jungleproducts.co.uk.