right, i am keen to make my bike lighter, so any meaningful advice would be good, i reckon it weighs 27lbs ish in its current guise, but i am after advise on wether its worth swapping over any of the spare kit i have got, or buying new, or just leaving it alone….

before i start i am aware that having a big poo before a ride, losing some weight myself, etc etc would probably be more efficent, but i have some kit, and thinking of getting other bits, so some advice and an idea of weight would be usefull. (I have checked weightweenies already for most of this stuff, and they do only seem to list older, really top end kit…)

Current set up

Anthem 2007/8 Small frame with RP3 shock (the 3.5mm travel alu one)
Fox F100RL 2005 forks
Avid Juicy 3 brakes 2009
XT cranks, square taper, 2002/3?(maybe older, they dont have rings which you can split up so maybe older? anyone know?)
XT viam oem hubs, 717 rims
kenda folding small block 8 tyres
deore cassette + chain
deore shifters
raceface ride xc stem and flatbar
thomson seatpost
spesh toupe saddle

Spare bits to maybe put on (wouldnt mind knowing what the weight advantage would be if any??)

Raceface Evolve xc chainset and ISIS BB
sram pg990 cassette
kmc x9sl chain
Mavic Crossride wheels
hope mono mini 2006 (black and gold ones)
sram x9 shifters and rear mech

was thinking of some used cross max wheels, maybe a really light crankset, and a lighter stem and bar combo, would this be worth it?

btw happy with the forks, cant really afford lighter….

Chain/cassette and brakes definitely. Wouldn't bother swapping the chainset. You could drop a chunk buying a new one though Aerozine do some light/cheap cranksets, although they don't seem to be being distributed anymore. In Germany they're sold under the name of 'Fun Works', alternatively look at KCNC, not too cheap though. Try KCNC for the bar/stem too.

Don't go for Crossmax, look for custom builds. What sort of budget would you be looking at for second hand wheels?

You could definitely save a lot on your existing wheels, although I doubt the Crossrides would be all that much lighter.

Aww – I thought you wanted a special lighter to hold up at concerts during "Rock Anthems"…

A friend of mine (Hope sponsored rider) is just about to sell his race wheels (quite cheap I think), if you're interested just give me a shout and I'll let him know before he puts them on ebay. Cheers.

cheers guys,

Mountainmonkey might well be, let me know what they are how old, how much etc, cheers!

Njee20 – cheers for the advice, so, say I get a carbon chainset (probably an FSA one, cant afford silly money), some lighter wheels (hope hubs, light rims, maybe) swap out the brakes, cassette, and chain, what do you reckon i could drop the weight by, roughly?

You havent specifically mentioned deciding not to do this…so, how about singlespeeding it? Or 1×9?

Laser Lite wheels off STW

Worth asking whether they are still up for sale. At 1600g per set is pretty light and after selling Your CrossRides they would probably cost You £20-30. CrossRides are about 1900g so 300g on wheels is quite a lot. Especially that it's not that expensive.

I had an older (2003 probably) XT chainset with octalink BB. My new HTII XT chainset feels way lighter and stiffer.

27lb isn't that bad for a FS bike. You can try some lighter stems/bars/seatpost combo. BOPLight is good value for money but unfortunately couldn't find it in UK. My friend has those bits and they are reasonably light for the price, bars just over 100g, stem as well and seatpost around 250g.

Also some light tubes and tyres. The saving might not be huge though but with lighter wheels the bike will feel faster.

With the exception of the frame and Toupe saddle none of those bits are up the scale in terms of 'light'. For example the Thomson post is nice but if it is an Elite then they're not lightweight.

I would suggest that your first port of call should you want to spend any money would be the wheels. Those XT hubs are heavy and you will feel any weight drop in the wheels more than you would likely on other components. I am not suggesting going silly light though with condomn thin tyres and flexy spokes as those kind of wheels only belong on the showroom weight weenie bikes that never get ridden. To save cash you could get the 717 rims laced onto some lighter hubs and get some rimstrips to run them tubeless. If you've got a couple of hundred or more to spend then get some Stans rims on a new wheelset and run tubeless, you'll save quite a lot there.

buy a new anthem x? new ones are lighter than 27lbs especially in small sizes – might be cheaper in the long run especially as there a few 2009 anthem x in the sale at the mo

If you go down the route of chainsets it's worth a look on On-One at their FSA sale, some pretty cheap ones on there.

As Will said though, if you're spending money the first port of call has to be the wheels, a lot of weight to save, and right where it makes the most difference.

Second hand may be a good way to go, even the Hope Hoops on 355 rims are nearly 1700g, if you can get sommat lighter I'd consider it.

Clearly the only way to do this is with a gimpy spreadsheet 🙂

Spend a happy afternoon stripping your bike down to it's component parts, and weigh them all, documenting it all.

Add in extra columns for parts which you could swap with, and the associated price of the swap. Weightweenies is good for getting weights for potential stuff.

Work out the price per gramme saved to get the best value.

Rotating mass will have the most noticeable effect.

And if you're me, then ruin it all by changing your nice light Marzocchi Marathons for some Fox 36's 😀

Cheers, Rich

Could be interested in your wheels and brakes if the price was right….

Cheers

I've never ever done the spreadsheet thing before, that just strikes me as being too much!

Spend the time riding instead, the speed gains will make up for the weight you may have saved!

Me and My friend here will save you some weight…

The spreadsheet approach can be good for identifying possible weight savings although my experience is that when you acually weigh the bikes they're often 5-10% more than the spreadsheet says they should be (in the case of my bikes that's probably mostly mud though, given how infrequently I wash them!).

For example my Zion (SID Race, HopeXC /X317 wheels, XT/XTR drivetrain, Speed King Supersonic tyres, carbon bars, thompson post) should be 23lbs according to a spreadsheet calculation, however it's a little over 24lbs when actually weighed. It does however tell me that if I did want to lose any more weight on it (and I don't really as it already feels very light) then the best place to start would be the wheels (more than 1/2lb would be lost my moving to a 1500g wheelset) or brakes (currently Deore).

I'd have thought a Hope XC/317 set up would weigh a lot more than 1700g, probably save nearer to a pound with some 1500g wheels.

Could drop 100g on the seatpost too if you wanted!

Agree spreadsheet weights are never even close. Compound error and all that.

The Deore cassette will weigh around 480 grams you can save 200g on that by changing to an xt 11 32 or similar, even more by using a 12 /27 ultegra for £45. Chain should also be replaced but you wont loose any weight they all seem to be around 270g the expensive ones are just shiny.

Juicy three are 400g per end and the best are about 350g per end so no big gain really.

Your wheels are probably around 1900g the same as crossrides, you will need to spend £300 to reduce that by 300g. The bars are about 200g some carbon or scandium jobs will be about £60 to save 100g. Giant fit lightweight tubes of 100g if you have replaced them with normal ones you will be adding 60g to each wheel. Quick saving of 100g possible for under £20 there. Dont know what sort of square taper chainset you have there but I imagine an slx at 900g inc BB will be lighter and you can get them for £70ish.
As you can see weight saving is addictive.

crazant yhm

turboferret, you made me laugh, i did the gimpy spreadsheet thing with a rigid carbony hardtail i built, it can be a bit anal… i really cant be arsed taking it all to bits, and my scales arent that accurate anyhow…

Chain should also be replaced but you wont loose any weight they all seem to be around 270g the expensive ones are just shiny.

The newest X9SLs are 224g, and shiny.

Juicy three are 400g per end and the best are about 350g per end so no big gain really.

Mono Mini Pro, Avid XX, Marta SLs, Forumla R1 etc are all <300g.

Thats 50g for £50 with that chain which aint such a great value saving in my book considering the chain will wear out and need replacing quite often.
I stand corrected on those brakes, I thought the marta sl's were about 350g and dont have any experience of the others.

Cassette, maybe rotors and definitely wheels.

Stans Crest rims+Stans Hubs + Revolution spokes = 1350gr wheels around 360£ tubeless is what my Anthem is getting.

Also getting some 160mm 80gr rotors and a PG990 cassette.

From my current setup it should be saving me 3lb or a bit over a kilo. Next up changing the Recon U-turn with an SID Race another 1 1/2-2lb :).

Next up carbon handlebars,seatpost and lightweight EA90 70mm stem.

Starseven read the first post, he has an X9SL kicking about.

£1/g isn't too bad really anyway.

Stans Crest rims+Stans Hubs + Revolution spokes = 1350g

Really? Thought they'd be over 1400.

I've just dropped 1lb 4oz off my Anthem, by swapping handle bars, pedals, skewers, seatpost clamp, tyres & tubes for about £260, however to loose another 1lb 2oz will set me back £1130 😯
The next cost effective change will most likly be the stem from a Thomson to a Syntace F99, not really worth swapping anything else till it's worn/broke as the grams saved per £ is ridicules.

New Ultimate stem is only 99g in 90mm and £74. Ti hardware, black or white, nicer than Syntace IMO.

Matching seatpost at 130g is rather tasty too, if I do say so myself!

vrapan or anyone, does anyone know what the frame alone weighs? its a small

this doesnt sound too bad, get new wheels, swap the cranks or buy new, swap cassette chain etc gradually change stem and bars….

I should save 1.5 – 1.75lbs for about £175 if i sell both my existing wheelsets….hmmmm

2504g for an 18" 2009 frame.

Timdrayton I have an XS 2010 Anthem X frame which weights 5.3lb with the shock not sure about yours but I doubt it would be any more than 5.6-5.7lb.

Njee20 http://www.justridingalong.com/?product=3711

If they lie then I lie. BTW The Crest ones are 20gr/pair less than the Olympic ones thus the 1350gr. You can drop a few more grams going Alpine.

wheels will make the bike feel faster too !

forks ? ?http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/fs-rock-shox-sid-race-2009

Wasn't calling you a liar, was just surprised they were as light as that, it doesn't seem to stack up when those hubs are 90g heavier than American Classics, and the rims are 100g heavier than ZTR Race, and yet the wheelset is only claimed to be 130g more than the ZTR Race wheelset!

Assuming that 1360g figure's based on the latest Olympics which generally come in at 340g or so you don't get the 20g saving with the Crest.

Be interested to know how you find the hubs though.

so basically you could spend a grand or more on making it a bit lighter (and you wouldn't actually be sure cos you are only guessing what it weighs at the moment).

Why do you want to make it lighter?

Njee20 sorry was not saying you called me a liar just that I was quoting their numbers not my own so if they were not accurate then I was not either.

They quote their Olympics as 352gr and they have been quoting the 1360gr figure since autumn when I first looked at them – not sure if there are new Olympics at 340gr.

I picked the Crest for their slightly wider profile compared to the Olympics and cause their quoting them as 20gr less.

I heard a few horror stories about AC hubs so I thought I'd rather go with Stans, will make a note to do a bit of a write up once I have a few miles on those 🙂

Even so given that I am no racer I doubt 50 extra grams would make any difference to me even if the 1360gr end up being very optimistic, I just need new wheels so I thought I'd invest in a decent light pair.

changing rubber grips to foam ones will save you most g/£.

Turboferret wrote:

"Spend a happy afternoon stripping your bike down to it's component parts, and weigh them all, documenting it all."

Ah, thank god, it's not just me! This is absolutely top advice, you can't target your purchases unless you know what everything weighs in the first place, you can end up spending £50 on a seatpost that turns out to be 10 grams lighter, or similiar.

Consider if you have any rings on the crankset you don't use- an Anthem's going to see more high speed than most I reckon but most mtb riders could safely lose the big ring, maybe with a taller middle ring to compensate, and that's about a hundred grams off at a stroke for peanuts (you'd probably need to buy short chainring bolts, and that's it, or £30 or so if you decide to go up to a bigger "middle" ring.

I just got a set of these:

http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/components/quick-release-skewers/product/hex-bolt-skewers-31004

Light, and effective- they're not quick release, but ask yourself, when do you ever take the wheels out without needing some tools anyway, a tyre lever or a pump? Other than loading into a car, where it's really no bother at all. I like them a lot.

so basically you could spend a grand or more on making it a bit lighter (and you wouldn't actually be sure cos you are only guessing what it weighs at the moment).

er more like £200…. am pretty sure its around the 27lb mark

Why do you want to make it lighter?

so that it weighs less…

Good idea on the hex key q/rs but i have some ti q/rs that are pretty light so i'll probly use them. its already got foam grips

I could merrily lose the small ring and keep the big and middle.

this is the bike in question, anyone know how old the cranks are, what they are and therefore how much they'd weigh?

get some continental race kings! 😀

super fast tyres, velcro grip, roll like road tyres.

Tim – love the pic! I have found wheels make a huge difference, plus Nobby Nic's.

I got my Juliana down to 25lb.

I would say somewhere around year 2000 or older as the 2001 ones had those silver crank arms and black chainrings so not like Yours.

cheers cinnamongirl i think its the forks that make it…

they are lovely btw

Glad you're pleased with them Tim 🙂