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HarmanMogul
I don't think ideal crank length depends on whether you ride fixed or free, but on what suits you personally.
At times in the past, for various reasons, I have used 165, 170 and 175 (naturally, I would say 6 and a half, six and threequarters and seven inch) but I have found that I am only really happy with 170. I prefer to be adaptable and not to be fussy about equipment, but that small difference in crank length seems to affect me quite a bit. However we're not all the same:-
A club mate, who is generally an excellent mechanic, long ago believed the theory that
different crank lengths were suitable for different purposes. Over a bank holiday weekend he had entered a time trial and a road race, and being a rider who went in for meticulous bike preparation, he stripped both road and tt bikes, polished everything and re-assembled them.
He was really 'pinging' that weekend and won both events.
It was only after he got home he realised that he had muddled the cranks and the 175 TT lefthand crank had got onto the road bike, and the 170 road crank was on the TT bike.
Since then, he tells me, he hasn't bothered too much about this theory.