Hi all,

I am trying to shave a bit of weight off my current bike, good place to start without spending toooooooo much seems to be the seat, seatpost, stem and bars. Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions on what is good. For XC use. I certainly don't want to spend more than £200 max on the three, obviously less if i can!

Cheers

You aren't going to shed that much really are you?

By all means try to justify* them by needing a shorter/longer/higher rise stem, inline/layback post, wider/higher/lower rise bars to tune/play about with ride position, but really unless you are building from new or broke the last set you aren't really going to get much of a difference out of swapping them
*This tends to be my approach anyway

It may be that you can loose the most grams/£, but none of them will have a dramatic effect on your bikes handling as they're all 'static' weight. They don't do a lot

Wheels are probably the best place to ditch weight as weight ditched in rotating wheels multiplied by 3 is equivalent to weight lost elsewhere (apparantly?)
£200 probably isn't going to ditch the most weight from your current wheels compared to spending £3-500+ and get something lighter still.
Though you could get something pretty good for £200 though. Something handbuilt using eg Mavic XC717 Discs or One of the Stans Tubeless rims going for light rims, not worrying about heavier hubs (have less effect, being in the middle)

Look at your tyres and tubes and consider if you could loose some weight there. Tubeless should loose the most. You can make most 'conventional' tyres/rims tubeless with the correct conversion kit, but will weigh more than dedicated tubeless tyres/rims

id look at wheels and tyres for £200 you will save a hell load of more weight!!

Rims and tyres will help more, loosing rotating weight will make the bike much sprightlier.

Saddles can loose a chunk of weight for not much spendy. If you're post and bars are the right dimensions and doing the job well enough, keep them.

Even with import duty, jenson USA currently doing decent deals on easton stuff – cheaper this friday too, maybe

Thanks for all the info really appreciate it. Looks like i'm looking in the wrong place hence why i am glad i asked! Certainly tubeless is an option, might have to save for the wheels!!

Cheers

why not buy 2nd hand?? save money and weght

Any suggestions on the best nd hand wheels to look out for?

Cheers

what's on there now in terms of wheels / tyres ?

dunno where you ride, but I've found lightish tubeless tyres to be a pain in the arse – 1x nobby nick UST and 1x maxxis ignitor failed with biggish flint cuts, even with jizz in them. Then again, same's true for tubed lightweight tyres here, plus far more "little" punctures

light wheels, though, great as long as you're not tubby & ride fairly smoothly

Got a pic and current spec list of your bike as it is now?

Kinda pointless recommending ANYTHING to lose weight on it without seeing it before hand, as it might already be that some of your parts are lighter than might be being recommended on here already!

It's a Trek 8000, with specialized DT swiss 420's. 2.1 Racing Ralph. Local single track stuff, Cannock and trail centres in Wales. I weigh 12st

I'll sell you a NEW Easton EC70 post CNT, 30.9 x 400mm, for £55, get an Easton EA90 stem new for £50 & a Easton CNT riser bar of ebay new for £75.

It's a Trek 8000, with specialized DT swiss 420's. 2.1 Racing Ralph. Local single track stuff, Cannock and trail centres in Wales. I weigh 12st

Same as this one?

Sounds like you've got a fairly lightweight wheel and tyre setup there already! Certainly you'd probably have to spend a fair whack to upgrade in this department. I mean, you could get some Hope Pro2's on Stans 355's, but they're only gonna save you perhaps 100g rotational weight overall, and would cost over £250.

I'd suggest that you'll not save tonnes of weight off the bars/stem/seatpost either… Maybe a set of Easton Carbon bars to replace your Bontrager ally ones, but otherwise, your stem and post are pretty light already. Maybe a lighter saddle? But then again, very light saddles usually equal an uncomfortable ride!

Easiest way to save a few grammes would probably be to swap the SRAM PG970 cassette for a Shimano XT one, should save you 50g roughly. An XTR rear mech would save 50g over the XT too, but obviously they're not quite so cheap!

Dickie,

I've emailed you.

Cheers

Hi Maverick,

Thanks.I have an XT Groupset already, I've just bought the bike off someone who sort of custom built it hence the non standard spec. I reckon the seat will save a bit though!! It has Race Face Evolve XC Stem and bars fitted.

Cheers

Have a look at Exotic, maybe, they have pretty nice seatposts and stems.

The smart thing to do is to weigh the parts you have, if you're weightweenying, you've got to know what your baseline is. I didn't spend much on my parts and got some nicely light components, Next SL seatpost and Truvativ Noir Team bars… Stems, not sure about, I didn't choose mine for lightness first and foremost.

KCNC cassette (save 100g), I-Beam seat and seatpost (save min. 100g), lightweight stem and bars (save 100g) and how about Titanium bolts throughout.

TBH the best thing is to buy some digital scales (most supermarkets sell 'drug' scales) and weigh everything – then surf the net and compare weights/prices.