Light bikes are better than heavier ones and even if they are not, light wheels are better than heavier ones. I’ve heard this repeated so often that it has to be true.

My fatbike weights 35lb and the wheels produce their own gravitational field. I love riding it, but clearly it would be even more fun if it were lighter. Time to reach for the credit card.

But hang on: I switched my light JJ tyres for some Bud/Lou rubber a while back. That added about a pound to the weight of each wheel. If lighter equals better then it must now be worse. So, why am I not finding that?

Fair enough, it’s a bit slower going uphill, but it’s even more fun coming down. Some of that will be down to extra grip, but I’m beginning to wonder whether I don’t actually prefer the feel of the heavier bike and even the heavier wheels. Once they are up to speed they are just so stable it’s unreal.

If I could wave a wand (or spend some cash) and knock five (or even ten) pound off the weight of the bike, would I enjoy riding it any more? I’m not so sure. It’s a tank, but tanks are fun.

No.

Thoughts from a pro: http://m.pinkbike.com/news/pinkbikes-ews-pro-rides-jared-graves-and-his-yeti-sb5c.html

My bike must have weighed 50lb after a ride last weekend with all the mud attached to it.

Obviously you’re happy as you are so no need to worry!

Also, being a fat bike the range of what constitutes ‘light’ and the scale of diminishing returns are both different to ‘normal’ bikes, so don’t get too skewed by it. I’m sure you can get a 25lb fat bike that rides brilliantly, but it’d cost £3-5k i guess?

Depends on what kind of riding you do really. If you do a lot of extended climbing / XC, especially competitive XC, then a light bike makes perfect sense.

However, for the general trail rider, I doubt a few extra pounds here and there would affect performance.

Weight matters to me but not at all costs- so in your case the extra grip can outweigh the weight. Would you replace a 1kg tyre with a 1.5kg tyre that otherwise performed exactly the same?

Once you get really light, weird stuff starts happening though- my Soda was under 20lbs at its lightest and it could be an incredible handful, it’d bounce off things that a heavier bike would just roll over and on familiar trails that used to catch me out a lot. “I’ll just ride into this slab then beast up it”, bike stops dead. But within sane ranges I’d always rather go lighter, as long as I’m not sacrificing usability.

(my Remedy is something like 28lbs, which isn’t light but I could take it out of the garage today and go to the alps or fort william and not worry about it holding up. It’s not about climbing on that bike, I just find lighter bikes easier/more engaging to ride, I can lift and drop and move it way easier than I could when it was 33lbs. Mechanical advantage innit, 60kg Northwind can manhandle a 10kg bike easier than a 15kg bike.

Whatever the manufacturers are trying to sell is ‘best’.
And 10 years of reading this forum shows that most people believe them.

I’ve got a 35lb tourer.
Not touched the lightweight road bike since I bought it, except to put in on the turbo.

I like a light bike ‘cos I am rubbish at climbing and a light bike helps but a mincer downhill so i don’t need the strength of a heavy bike. Its alla compromise tho – imagine riding a 60lb bike!

As others have mentioned, much depends on how you ride and where you ride.

My father has a fairly light HT (24lb) compared to my past 3 HT’s but I’d take any of them over his for where and how I ride.

In fact, thinking on it, my recent HT purchase is certainly heavier than its predecessor (both 29er ht in steel) but I prefer the new one. Ok some element of new bike love might exist but it was chosen for very specific geometry / seatpost diameter / frame features reasoning that were what I wanted for my riding so that makes up for it being about 3 lb heavier.

Would you replace a 1kg tyre with a 1.5kg tyre that otherwise performed exactly the same?

No, because I’ve bought the line that lighter wheels are better and I’ll pay more for the lighter option if all else is equal. But having switched from 1Kg tyres to 1.5Kg ones (for the extra grip) I’m wondering whether the extra weight actually brings advantages of it’s own (aside from the grip).

It accelerates more slowly, which is obviously a bad thing, right? Except that I prefer that slower acceleration in some cases. With a lighter wheel, I’ll start a decent and in no time at all I’m going faster than I feel comfortable going, so it’s on the brakes. With the heavier wheel it takes more time, the speed builds more slowly and I feel less need to brake, which can end up being faster.

A heavier wheel is harder to turn, which is also bad in theory. But harder to turn means more stable, which means more confidence and that translates to more fun.

Having said all that, when summer comes I’ll no doubt put the lighter tyres back on, because lighter = better. We all know that.

I’ve gone on a few crazy drives to make my bikes lighter, every time I’ve ended up with a bike I like less (aside from the rigid carbon forked Scandal, I loved that!). Wheels specifically, light wheels and 6’6″, 100kg rider is never good.

Lighter is not always better, but sometimes it is.

Bits I’ve changed on my Wazoo…
Tyres: OEM 4.0″ Mission Commands (~1500g each) to 4.0″ Jumbo Jim snakeskins (~1130g each), complete game change changer to the good!
Innertubes: OEM (~500g each) to SV13F front (~190g) and SV13J (~400g), hard to say
Pedals: OEM Wellgo (~450g) to Wellgo C162 (~225g), better grip for sure
Handlebar: OEM 720mm flat (~390g?) to 747mm Chewy Knuckleball 25mm rise (~200g?), much comfier on hands and lower back much happier with higher front end
Stem: OEM 70mm (~200g?) to EL Guapo Corto 35mm (~130g?), definitely helped regain some steering response and reduced reach so good for my lower back

So ~1635g saved, mostly for benefits other than weight saving that I instantly noticed when changing.

Then there is my FatNotFat wheelset (~2300g), saving ~1000g over the OEM fat wheelset, which opened up a massive range of 700x28c to 29×2.35″ which are much more suited to road riding and often cost a damn sight less than decent fat tyres.
Tubes on the 29er wheels (~160g each), saving ~270g over the current fat wheel tube combo.
700x38c Marathon Cross (~580g each) save ~1100g over the 4.0″ Jumbo Jims.
11-30 cassette (~300g?) saves ~50g(?) over the 11-34 cassette on the fat wheels, getting rid of that hideous 26-34T jump and more suitable road gears.

But for all the above 29er weight savings (~2420g? Thought it was closer to 3Kg from memory), it’s not that much faster than my fat wheel setup, but then my short rides are often limited by traffic lights luck and uphill sections are typically less than ~2mins of relatively aggressive climbing.

Still got my Carbon Fatty fork (~900g saving) to fit and I keep looking at the bulky ~700g OEM seat post and saddle! 😆

No.

i’m a 12stone mincer, i can get away with really light stuff. I treated myself to a pair of really nice, light wheels. The older, heavier, less sexy wheels definitely felt better: less nervous, sketchy, etc.

I like light but for me there is too light.

A few years ago I built this as a bit of an experiment. It was horrible

With a few changes to the picture above it was about 17lbs. Not a good feeling riding it.

Conversely I had a play with one of these at about 15lb and it was fantastic:

Different horses and all that.

Riding a fatbike forces you to question the importance of lightness…. 😀

I’ve noticed weight loss in my wheelset I’d say but otherwise, as long as it’s not ridiculous I think it’s a non-issue.
My trail full suss bike is steel and is never going to be feather weight, but it rides amazingly.

It would make much more sense to lose the weight off myself…

No, not for me anyway – I had some very light Alu wheels that came OE with a bike once, hated them – they seemed to be thrown off line with the slightest provocation, made for a very twichy, nervy feeling ride.

My lightest bike (Ti XC/trail) is the one that’s been responsible for breaking me the most but I do still love riding it in dry conditions.

light wheels and heavy coil spring suspension makes smiles for miles.

the rest just needs to be reliable and low maint. but I do choose the lighter option if possible.

roverpig – Member

Having said all that, when summer comes I’ll no doubt put the lighter tyres back on, because lighter = better. We all know that.

I think my summer tyres are heavier- dry trails = ride faster = steam into things faster.

(I’m just finishing building my new Official XC Bike. It’s going to come out at about 22lbs once I’ve done the wheels- but it’s got a dropper post in. That’s about a 450g weight penalty, totes worth it. But I wouldn’t want 450g extra in the wheels)

Last weekend, I only wished for a lighter bike because I was pushing the bastard up a hill of treacle. Climbing on a mountain bike is overrated.

If lighter equals better then it must now be worse. So, why am I not finding that?

Fair enough, it’s a bit slower going uphill

You seem to have contradicted yourself. You are finding a difference and if you want to go quicker uphill you have found that light = better.

How many seconds quicker over a mile long climb and how important that is to you should be used as guidance for whether you care about it or not.

As with most things I think there’s a tipping point where all other things being equal lighter does not equal better. But it depends on your personal circumstances and riding style so there’s no one rule for all. I’ve got my Ti Stanton Slackline down to 24.5lbs and I wouldn’t want it any lighter.

Is lighter always better?

What’s your definition of better rp?

Personally I quite enjoy the motorbike-without-an-engine feel. None of us can give any more than 100% concentration and for me a bike that absorbs some of the feedback that I don’t really need to know about makes me more confident.

I’ve ridden bikes that Make Trails Come Alive but tbh I prefer bikes that destroy trails

I couldn’t give a damn about “slower uphill” tbh, except for the one xc race I do every year- but slower is just code for harder work really.

apparently not

What’s your definition of better rp?

Well, yes, I guess that is the question. I actually quite enjoy a good climb, so faster climbing should be high on my list of priorities. But there is just something so damn seductive about blasting down stuff on a tank!

I couldn’t give a damn about “slower uphill” tbh, except for the one xc race I do every year- but slower is just code for harder work really.

True. Work done is proportional to weight time height climbed if I remember correctly. So, heavier should mean more work. Although, even at 12 stone I could safely lose 10 lb off myself without and negative effects and there is always more to consider than just weight. How efficiently power gets transferred to the ground, traction, rolling resistance etc.

Riding a fatbike forces you to question the importance of lightness

Aint that the truth. Love the picture, although glad we don’t get that sort of mud up here 🙂

I like light-ish wheels but I’m not too fussed about the whole bike being skinny, I’d rather the bike ploughed through or over stuff than was pinged about but that probably speaks more about my lack of ability and finesse than owt else 😆

The same 44 mile ride with 2862 feet of climb:

On my 8.8 kg Specialized: 3 hours 4 minutes.

On my 6.4 kg Bianchi: 2 hours 49 minutes – 15 minutes quicker and a lot more fun.

Presumably the effort was similar, the lighter bike just went faster.

Lighter is better, but a lighter component will often alter or compromise something else. And you might need to get used to the lightness if you’ve got dialled in to something heavier.

For instance dual ply super tackys give a really “dead” ride, which is exactly what you want when charging over things that could knock you off line. If they were lighter, and still had the same properties*, they’d be better even at this specific task.

I suspect that as well as better grip, you’ll be getting a little more damping over the bumps from the slightly thicker sidewalls, OP.

*I’d happily take lighter with different properties as getting this dead feeling also makes them pretty slow on anything that’s not steep.

Light bikes are better than heavier ones and even if they are not, light wheels are better than heavier ones. I’ve heard this repeated so often that it has to be true.

I stopped hearing that in the late 90s.

Heavy wheel accelerate slower, this is true, but they also have a lot more angular momentum (as do bigger wheels, which are also heavier as well). This has advantages.

I’ve told this story a few times on here but it’s an important anecdote. I’ve been riding a 26lb rigid 29er up the same loose rocky climb chasing the KOM. I tried it on my old 26er XC race bike which weighs 21.5lbs and expected to fly up it. But it has a 1300g wheelset with 450g tyres, and the 29er has an 1800g wheelset with 750g tyres. On the light bike there wasn’t enough momentum to deal with the rocks (compounded by the smaller wheel size); when I hit a bump I’d stop. It took me three goes to clear the climb, and it was much much harder. Conversely on the rest of the ride with smoother trails it was indeed a bit quicker.

So heavier (or larger) wheels can help if it’s rocky or bumpy.

to be fair I think you would have to compare bikes with different weights but the same wheel diameter.

molgrips, if you repeat it with otherwise identical bikes (wheel size for one thing!) I’d attribute that to weight. As it is, it seems like a lot of factors (tyres, wheel size etc.) will have helped you up on the rigid. Even the fact it’s a rigid will help in some places if it needs a little hop up, it’ll be more direct (in my experience anyway – I still fell off the rigid more when I had it, but there were places I was less likely to dab).

if you repeat it with otherwise identical bikes (wheel size for one thing!) I’d attribute that to weight.

It was *much* harder to clean the climb on the lighter bike, is my point. The eventual time was comparable with the time on the rigid bike. But it was clearly a question of wheel momentum and size. When I failed, it was because rocks and bumps I was expecting to roll up would just stop the bike dead. Even though it had suspension.

I’d also cleaned the first half quite a few times on my big bike which is also 26 but has really heavy wheels. Although on that bike I tend to stop for a rest half way up on the flat bit rather than dab 🙂

I’ve always liked light bikes. For me they are better. Now I’m not racing it doesn’t matter whether they are a quicker or not just that I enjoy the quick responsive feel they give.

how often do you actually get the exact same component but lighter? I’m struggling to think of an example where removing weight doesn’t alter some other characteristic. After owning a bike for a while (or you know what you want and build up a custom job) you end up with parts chosen for specific reasons, strength, grip, feel, cost etc I’d wager very few of us will have a majority of parts chosen cos they are the lightest available. If you offered me the same bike I have now but everything was somehow lightened to get it to about 25lbs (something like a 7-8lb loss) I’d snatch your hand off, if you said “that’ll be an extra £3000 please” I’d probably pass.

But for unlimited budgets….with the possible exception of wheels*, making anything lighter for free (no performance/strength loss) is a good thing, down to about 25lb. After that you probably start getting nervous handling (from what others have said, apart from my ss I don’t I’ve ever gone sub 25lb)

*gyroscopic effect is probably a good thing but I haven’t tried riding feather weight wheels/tyres down big rocky downhills to test the theory, I wouldn’t be able to afford all the busted parts.

So heavier (or larger) wheels can help if it’s rocky or bumpy.

gut feeling says bigger wheels will have much more effect than the weight/momentum differential.

But you’d probably have to get the Giant marketing team on it to get some hard and fast figures (and then they’d probably say whatever Giant’s “wheel size du jour” was 13% better than everyhting else)

Depends. If you want to ride everywhere against the clock or racing your mate then lighter is better. If you’re not bothered what the clock says or beating your mate then lightness doesn’t give you anything other than a lighter wallet.

the difference in the weight between a light frame and a not so light frame (within reason of course) is a small percentage of all up weight for most of us so you’re not going to see a huge performance benefit.

I’d rather invest in robustness. For example, the time you might save with lighter tyres would be completely wiped out by a multiple factor with one puncture. Sometimes these things are false economies.

wobbliscott – Member

Depends. If you want to ride everywhere against the clock or racing your mate then lighter is better. If you’re not bothered what the clock says or beating your mate then lightness doesn’t give you anything other than a lighter wallet.

I posted this earlier, but that’s not true- lighter bikes do ride differently. I quite enjoy the unstoppable feeling of heavy wheels and tyres that people have posted about (my Hemlock in alps mode was a straight line monster truck) , but I also like the easier movement you get with a lighter bike. I think maybe this is exaggerated for a rider like me that’s pretty light?

The hard part- for me, the fun part- isn’t making things light, any idiot can do that. It’s making light bikes that work.

I rode the 29er the other day with two bottles on the frame , instead of a comeback. It felt worse, really leaden on the rocky climbs. That was just 3 extra pounds. Negligible compared to total weight, but it did affect the way the bike rode.

Lighter wheels = less rotational weight = greater economy of pedal effort = less fatigue = worth it on longer rides?