The combined weight of me and my bike is over 200lb. If I lose 1lb of weight off my bike it will be less than a 0.5% change in weight and cost a significant amount of money. My fitness varies by more than 0.5% from day to day, therefore I don't stress too much about weight. My advice would be to ride the wave of diminishing returns at its optimum point and spend the money you save on coke and prostitutes of your preferred sex and sexuality.

Ti bolts everywhere.

http://www.analyticcycling.com/ForcesLessWeight_Page.html

For example; here is a 5kg weight saving, which would cost at least a million pounds, the advantage over a 2km climb?

8.7 seconds….

Err, hang on a minute, thats bassed on a gradient of 0.03 rise/run. I.e. less than a 1 meter climb every 30 meters….hardly a gradient at all.

Enter something far more realistic like 1 in 10 meters, still not the steepest of climbs, and your suddenly 40 seconds or 125m ahead. reduce the riders power from 250w or increase his weight, and the figure increases further.

Change the gradient to some of the steeper stuff like a 1 in 4, oh look, 125 seconds ahead. So understanding and using your own example actually proves that weight makes a resonable difference!

This business of combining the bike and rider weight is a load of theoretical garbage.

Getting up a steep hill usually involves considerable body weight shifts so the ratio of rider weight to bike weight is important and a light bike makes a difference.

I've timed myself on long offroad climbs and the difference 3-5lbs makes is considerable.

Light is good and lighter is better.

Unbelievers are welcome to come on a long ride with me – I need someone to carry my camping kit 🙂

Spend £180 with mr Jedi and learn to ride the bike as is

Priceless !!!

clive – Member
Spend £180 with mr Jedi and learn to ride the bike as is

Priceless !!!

Good idea, but completely different issue.

Spend £180 with mr Jedi and learn to ride the bike as is

Already been on a course at Llandegla and a Nigel Page course. Just need to perfect all that has been taught me. 🙄

Getting up a steep hill usually involves considerable body weight shifts so the ratio of rider weight to bike weight is important

That's a load of theoretical garbage.

My experience both of light and heavy bikes myself and of friends riding them is a couple of pounds difference in weight of a bike makes a lot more difference than it should do logically.

Carry on chaps; there is a whole industry and a very large secondhand market based on the people who believe that saving a few hundred grammes will make them appreciably quicker.

It's still nonsense.

..and unless physics has changed since I was at school, total weight of bike/rider/baggyclownpants/Camelbakwith3litresofwatercosI'ddehydrateanddie/6inchesoftravelforthat30secondbitinthewoods is far more important than a 'light' bike.

As the example above shows, you would be 2 minutes quicker up a 2 kilometer 1 in 4 climb if you spent enough money to lose 5 kilos…

..probably works out at about £10-£15 pounds a second up that mythical climb; fill yer boots!

Meh, weight loss without performance loss is enough of an end in itself I rekon. A really light bike (like, sub 9kg) is a totally different thing to ride than a 15kg one, even if you add a 6kg rucksack. perhaps psychological but it matters not. True perhaps that saving 100gr is no real saving in itself, but save that 5 times and that's a half kilo … then we're talking.

I have a similar fork (Pike … but 426 coil UTurn) and have been thinking of a similar upgrade. Thor/TALAS32/Rev would each be a clear half kilo lighter than what I have on there atm but blimey they're not cheap.

I got lucky last week and found a 15mm '09 Talas 32 RLC for <450 Euros so grabbed it. Otherwise, I don't think I'd pay the 700+ asking for the weight saving (because let's face it, the Pike is an excellent fork)

you didn't say what brakes you have in the OP, there can be 200+ gr to be saved there …. again only worth it if you can find a deal or anyway want an upgrade, but Avid seem to be pushing Elixir CR carbons pretty hard atm, they can be found for 200 quid a set if you're lucky

Crikey, you seem to be giving examples that disprove your point. On a typical race or ride, you'll be climbing far more than just 2km. And 2 minutes is a huge amount. Imagine intervals and having an extra 2 minutes rest period between them, for the first few climbs that'll be enough for your HR to fully recover!

You seem to justify your point by making out everyone themselves is over weight which isn't the case. If you were really fat, then you'll start breaking lightweight bits. But why carry around more weight than you need to? Same goes for what's in the backpack, which seems to be part of your point, but again this just proves that weight matters when you're going up!

If the point is it's not value for money, well only the person with the money can judge it's value to them.

Didn't one of the mags do an article in 09 (or even 08) where they tried to test where and how weight mattered (or not)?

Also weight for me in order of 'badness', based upon m/c and cycling:

Rotating weight / Weight at the end of 'levers'
Unsprung weight
Outside of C of G

And while I don't notice so much a full 3.0l Camelbak, I do notice that 3kg's on a bike – especially when lifting over fences.

I better you have more fat to shed out of you than weight saving from the bike.

Get under 10% body fat and THEN you can start to think about loosing weight from the bike. A factor a lot of you seems to elude is the weight/rigidity ratio.

My new wheels are heavier than my old ones (rim being big stuff and so). However the weight gain is largely compensate by the rigidity of the wheel (and by the gain going down). It's all good to have light stuff, but if it's made of cheese no point.

Anyway this on is a STW classic, people with more money than sense/skill/fitness will get amazing evidence to prove that blowing cash on a bike to make it light is the way forward. Other people will just enjoy riding their bikes. Usually ahead of the credit card skill ones.

Nobody seems to have asked the sensible thing yet – what kit is actually on your bike! Full build list please!

Get under 10% body fat and THEN you can start to think about loosing weight from the bike

blimey dad, are you whoring STW now?

Oh, you're not my dad … then I'd just as soon you stop telling me what I can and can't do, tyvm

😉

juan – Member
I better you have more fat to shed out of you than weight saving from the bike.

Get under 10% body fat and THEN you can start to think about loosing weight from the bike. A factor a lot of you seems to elude is the weight/rigidity ratio.

Thats a majorly low % body fat for a none athlete male, agree most of us (myself included) have a lot of weight to loose, but that is a significant figure for someone to aim for.

Thats a majorly low % body fat for a none athlete male, agree most of us (myself included) have a lot of weight to loose, but that is a significant figure for someone to aim for.

Well if you are that much bothered about the weight of your bike it means you are after efficiency, hence you probably train and ride several times a week too. So you should get to this kind of figures quite easily.

not many people are under 10% body fat. Im about 14% and probably one of the lightest people on the forum.

More to the point, the guy said riding 1×9 would probably kill him – if that's the case then making the bike lighter isn't really going to gain him much in the way of performance.

Kev

Im about 14% and probably one of the lightest people on the forum.

Now I see a very stupid bet coming on here 😉

Frankly, I'm not that interested in having a light bike so that I can go faster than other people – as seems to be the assumption here.

I want a light bike because its easier to move about, more responsive on tricky terrain and lets me be out longer for less effort. All these things equal more fun.

As far as I'm concerned, the possibility of being quicker than the next man is at the back of my list.

That statement about 1×9 is cobblers IMO. AFAIR you lose 2 effective gears off one end and three off the others. The rest on a 27 speed setup are just duplicates and over laps.

To the OP – change the Pikes to some Revs.

reading this with intrest as I look at weight loss for rider and bike for the summer enduros but this is last 2 years experience, 10 mile course with a 4 mile climb and then 2 x 1 mile steep climbs, rider weight 13.5 stone(currently 14.5)body fat about 18% maybe a bit more all using a garmin gps. bikes all times within one week of each other

24lb yeti asl 2.1 racing ralph time 1hr 03m 28

28 maverick 2.3/2.1 maxxis ignators 1 hr 03 05

35 lb turner rfx horst link 2.35 blue groove/2.25 maxxis advatages 1.03.35

Rider condition 35 lb bike rough, left a lung somewhere, 24 breathing and okay 28lbs good

point for me yeti was nervy on the downs or i was……..turner made loads of time on the downs stuck in on the climb, maverick great compromise.

Lesson for me I am not the greatest or quickest rider especially on the downs so a bit more weight helped, target weight for me is 28/29lb with out getting silly with the money.

Light strong cheap choose 2 still is the motto.

Juan speaks a lot of sense. Unless you're at the real top end (of whatever type of riding, look at Steve Peat's WC bike, bolts out of rotors etc) then it's just not worth dropping the cash.

I know this yet have 3 bikes and am as equally stupid as the rest. Why? Who knows, one for a therapist one day… (currently not in therapy as the £35 a week seems a lot – 10 weeks = a new set of wheels – the irony!)

Scienceofficer, I get what you're saying but why do you want to put in less effort? Maybe that's what you need to look at.

I ride with a club. If the Yeti is off the road, I'll take a 38lb Commencal Meta 6 set up for uplift days. I still ride with the same people at the same pace and I definitely don't spend any less time riding. Sure I might be a bit slower up but I'll be near the front on the way down…

poppa – Member
"Getting up a steep hill usually involves considerable body weight shifts so the ratio of rider weight to bike weight is important"
That's a load of theoretical garbage.

So you sit rigidly in one position and don't need to move your body weight to get up steep climbs? I think Sky are looking for such a rider right now.

If people are going to quote physics as justification, they need to take into account that the rider is moving around on the bike, ie his mass is moving relative to the bike and that has an effect on how the bike gets up the hill – it's not all in the legs.

For example, watch a single speed rider on a steep pitch. The rider's body moves forward and then the bike gets pulled up – the rider is using the displacement of his CoG to help get the bike uphill. Sort of like swimming uphill. Probably not the best explanation, but that's how it feels to me. A heavy bike makes this exercise more difficult. Geared riders may not do this to the same extent, but they do use this technique.

For the sake of this post let's assume that no-one is using a bike that has been lightened to an unrideable state.

Classic STW….

OK, lets try a real world (as near as possible) example;

Using the above analytic cycling link, and the figures for Minch Moor, which I calculate to be a height gain of 421 metres over about 10 km, the figures for weight loss come out at;

For a 100kg rider/bike combo, you would be 51 seconds quicker by losing 3kg.

For the same guy to lose 5kg you would be 88 seconds quicker.

For those who think these time gains are massive, I'd love to see someone manage to do three climbs of Minch Moor and get times that didn't vary by a minute…

My point is that a 2km 1 in 4 climb is an enormous climb.
..and losing 5kg is an enormous weight loss.

thus; the performance gain from buying lighter bike bits is very very small and very very expensive.

51 seconds in a three hour ride… Is it really worth the £3-£4-£500 (and the rest….) it would cost?

Basic cycling adage; you can't buy performance…

..and while I'm in the mood, the idea that rotating weight is somehow important is not actually true. Weight is weight whether it spins, pirouettes, swings or bounces.

Rotating weight is only a factor when you are accelerating, and the average chubby mountain biker doesn't accelerate very fast at all. (Please think of the children before you tell me about the little accelerations that you make when you are climbing… Trust me, they're not significant)

If people are going to quote physics as justification, they need to take into account that the rider is moving around on the bike, ie his mass is moving relative to the bike and that has an effect on how the bike gets up the hill – it's not all in the legs.

No, but you still have to get you and the bike and all your stuff to the top of the hill; lighten the bike by 10 kilos and put ten kilos on your back; same weight, same physics, same work required to get to the top.

crikey

Out of interest, how heavy is your bike and how heavy are you? For me, its 80kg and 11kg (140mm HT w/o pedals).

For the record I sit and spin up climbs, unless its horrendously steep whereupon I will lockout my fork and stand. In either case I do not try and move my bike back and forth(!) as this would be a waste of energy, on the contrary I try to pedal as smoothly as possible. The only thing getting you up that hill is the force acting on the cranks. Not trying to sound rude, but I am not sure what you mean by the rider 'moving forward and then the bike gets pulled up'.

The bottom line is that the energy required to move an object by a vertical distance (ignoring rolling resistance etc for a minute) is mgh, where m is the mass, g is the acceleration due to gravity and h is the height. Increase m by 1% and you increase the energy you need by 1%.

This is true whether you are pedalling uphill, or swimming uphill. 😉

The interesting weights are the actual ones; without pedals? 🙄

I'm about 80 kgs, and have a FS about 14kgs, but then I wear another few kgs worth of Camelbak, helmet, gloves, shoes, tube, pump, water, mobile, house keys etc.

I reckon about 100 kgs all in.

…On my road bike, the bike weight is nearer to 7 kgs, and I carry less gubbins, so come in about 90 kgs.

I do not try and move my bike back and forth(!) as this would be a waste of energy

well, if you do move the bike side to side you'll find you can use your arms as well as your legs – if you keep your body still it can be quite effective – watch roadies on a steep bit and you'll normally see good use of this technique.

"the bike weight is nearer to 7 kgs"

Crikey, crikey, that's pretty light.

Aye, tis a Scott Addict…

..with pedals.. 😉

For handling surely you're better off keeping the weight on the bike (low) and removing it from the rider (high)?

I'd be interested to see though how handling changes when the rider/bike weight ratio is changed. A little guy on a DH bike vs donkey kong on a 20lb XC bike.

donkey kong on a 20lb XC bike.

offtopic but I saw a >>100kg dude (he had height AND width!) racing a carbon Scott Scale at the Spa 24 hr in'08. I was sure he was going to stand on the pedals and rip the frame in 2 but it seemed to survive

Bloody hell lads,

I only wanted to do a bit of retail therapy.

This is getting a bit daft now, (but makes a good lunch time read). 😆

and more importantly, who the hell has less than 10% body fat FFS.

who the hell has less than 10% body fat FFS.

roadies, that's who

*shiver*

"who the hell has less than 10% body fat FFS"

I do. I eat what I like, when I like, and never seem to put on an ounce.

It drives my wife to distraction as she seems to be able to absorb calories just by looking at the wrong sort of food.

Ahhh STW…

From bicycle lightening bling to wwaswas' wifes {I'm sure absolutely delightful} bum in 80 posts.

Quality. 😆