I’m thinking of building up a race bike but I’m not sure what sort of weight to look for for the frame. Ideally I’d prefer alu to carbon, and I’d probably need a 17″ if that matters.

Any advice/reccomendations welcome!

1300-1400 grams.

my scandal frame was about 1400g bare frame

You can get a decent cheap-ish frame for a nice build that is about 1500-1600g like Kinesis Maxlight, or even Specialized M4, my friends 19.5″ M4 with headset, hanger and seat clamp wights 1620g, my mates 18″ M5 S-works is a bit lighter than that.

Another good priced option would be a Giant XTC frame, I had an ATX 880 (earlier XTC when the tubing on the team model was called AL CU 92 – kind of Aluxx SL) that was about 1570g in 20.5″ with the headset and seat clamp.

You can get more expensive frames that will weight around 1300-1400g for the frame but I would recon prices would start from around £200-300 and go up depending on the brand.

Worth checking weight weenies website and checking their light builds and also the listings to get some weights.

(My Maxlight weights about 11.5-12kg so not weightweenietastic but rides great and I’m too heavy for some silly light components anyway).

I have a couple of ‘old’ Trek ZR9000 frames in 19.5″. Cheap as hell 2nd hand & never had any issues with the things even when I weighed the wrong side of 90kg.
I paid 100euro for 1520g.

It’s the old – where do you stop with the spending question. I’m not really any faster on my carbon frames that cost 10 times more…..

Thing is I have a Gary Fisher Cronus frame that seems pretty light, but I have no way of weighing it accurately! How do you lot weigh your frames?!

kitchen scales should go upto 1.5kg, but probably only +/-20g at best.

I’d look at the Hasa carbon frames on eBay, cheaper than most alu frames with a very respectible weight. Think there’s 2 styles, but there was certainly one on weight weenies that was 1250g for about €250 or so.