My mate is racing the nationals in a couple of weeks.

Any good weight saving/performance increasing tips and tricks you can give in terms of the bike?

Have a big poo before the race.

Use a plane to take some weight off the tyres.

Take the front wheel out and wheelie up….gotta save 5-600grams.
Try and remember it’s not about the bike?

Slimfast or gardia have shown the best results for me and are cheap.

Otherwise stock answer without any other details wheels, tyres and tubes. Low end cassettes can weigh a far bit. I swapped my saddle and post from stock to Carbon post and ti railed saddle don’t know how much it saved but it weighs knack all now. Only did it as I had some free Halfords money. I’ve been looking this week at switching to full carbon fork i reckon that can a save a fair bit of weight from an OEM fork.

Single front ring and remove mech, cable and replace left STI with a brake lever only.

Chain as short as possible

Lightest combo of wheels, tyres and tubes he has or can scrounge

Cut excess off bars

Remove padding from seat and drill the base out

All bar the minimum bar tape

Wear as little clothing as he can get away with

Fixed wheel if course is suitable.

Picolax the days prior to the event, then load up on EPO?

Shave his head and arms (and all other parts of his body)

#marginalgains

THanks for the help so far. Is it worth removing grease from his wheel bearings to reduce drag?

yes. and BB, obvs.

Current champion Dan Evans did 4.11 this weekend on the nat’s course .He’s just been riding his stock Evo with a sub kilo wheelset at events.Any mechanical gains are going to be very marginal (a 1% gain would be pretty big and gain only 2.5 seconds).However psychologically they can make a big difference…..if you think they can 😉

Rorschach – Member
Current champion Dan Evans did 4.11 this weekend on the nat’s course .He’s just been riding his stock Evo with a sub kilo wheelset at events.Any mechanical gains are going to be very marginal (a 1% gain would be pretty big and gain only 2.5 seconds).However psychologically they can make a big difference…..if you think they can

I think you’re right; all though any gain is worth it. To be fair, he doesn’t have a set of sub kilo wheels (or anywhere near that) so I don’t think he’ll be winning 😉

Would like to see him do well though; I’ll tell him to get the drill out.

Have a big poo before the race.

and hope the rest of the competition hasn’t figured that one out? 8)

I’ve always wanted to fill my tyres with helium to see what effect it would have

Having watched a local (steep) hill climb, sort your gearing low enough to get a good cadence, not just slow grinding pedal stroke…

Be ruthless. If you are really serious about it, build a bike specific for hill climbing.

That way you can do silly things like only having an inch or 2 seatpost in the frame, cut down bars, drilled saddle, stupidly light wheels etc, 1×10, small Road block, weight weenie tyres and tubes.

Basically a bike that you can only use for climbing depending on the course obviously.

Just ride shit loads, whatever the bike.

seatpost and 1×10 are good suggestions. It’s up jackson bridge which is quite steep, so I doubt he’ll use the 53. Also, what about stem/bar height for steep climbs? I find longer and lower much more comfy; is there any science behind this? What’s the norm on hill climb bikes? I’ve never done a “proper” one like the nationals myself; last one I did, there was at least one bloke riding an mtb!

Lower pressure will also save weight…

😀

Would a lower pressure be better for a steep course though? Bit more grip?

Take out every third spoke? 😉

I use a weight weenie rule of thumb. It’s about £1 per gram to save weight on a bike, although Chinese direct sellers are now bringing the cost of saving the first kilo on your bike down to about £600.

Assuming your mate isn’t loaded, save weight on the cheaper items first. Tubes, rim tape, tyres. Just upgrading these to lightest versions can make a big difference to rolling resistance.

I got a Selle SLR titanium saddle (137g)on eBay for £20. Chinese carbon seatposts can come in at around 100g.

1300g Chinese carbon wheelsets can be had for under £300.

matt_outandabout – Member
Take out every third spoke?

🙂 it can’t be done! His spoke numbers aren’t divisible by three!

Buy something like this from eBay at 104g (allegedly) and drill it.

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=111772102442&alt=web

it can’t be done! His spoke numbers aren’t divisible by three!

There was a 😉 for a reason….

No saddle?

Fixie
Forgot stupid light wheels unless he is sub 65kg himself.

Removal the writing from a set of new tyres.
Convince him they are protoypes from Continental and are an experimental compound thought to be the fastest tyres ever made. You need to be very convincing about how secret this is and just how fast these tyres are.
Give him the new ‘super fast’ tyres and tell him he will owe you one when he wins.

Is it to late to get one of those secret electric motors fitted in the down tube?

As Rosarch says, real differences will be tiny. All in the mind.

The ideal race bike does of course fall apart at the finish line tho 😎

Giving blood on the day of the race should save about half a kilo

Fit a Tioga spyder saddle and paired with one of the Bontrager x-lite carbon seat posts I have for sale, to make a very light combo.

A friend of mine who does hill climbs (top 10 at catford and the Bec last year, 2nd vet this year) just uses his light/stiff carbon road bike and a set of normal ‘climbing’ wheels and nothing drilled or removed.
genetics and training make far more difference than shaving down your brake pads on the one working brake.

http://cyclinguphill.com/marginal-gains-hill-climb-bike/

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest-news/the-super-light-specifications-of-a-hill-climb-champions-bike-194310

I use a weight weenie rule of thumb. It’s about £1 per gram to save weight on a bike, although Chinese direct sellers are now bringing the cost of saving the first kilo on your bike down to about £600.

Eh, how’s that a rule of thumb? That will vary wildly depending on where you start.

FarSports do some 950g tub wheels for £300ish. Was very tempted by a pair.

Now if only martinxyz would just chime in.

He’s the man who won a steep hill climb on his BMX bike and the roadies were so upset they haven’t run the event since… 🙂

Drill holes in your tyres
Remove your pedals

This is a joke thread…right?

I’ve done the Jackson Bridge hill climb – yes me the fat one. I came dead last behind the youths but at least I tried! Got loads of encouragement from the organisers which was really nice.

I’d say get loads of people you know to come and watch, I always reckon that helps loads.