It wasn't long ago when 30lbs was considered to be about as heavy as you would want a trail bike to be, now it almost seems that 30lbs is light for a trail bike and its not unusual for bikes to be much heavier than this,there does seem to me to be too much of an emphasis on how fast a bike can be ridden downhill with too little consideration to how it rides the rest of the time
https://www.bikeperfect.com/features/bespoken-word-does-cycling-have-an-obesity-problem
Whats a lbs ? Is that like an old word for Kilo ?
how can they sell you next years "lightweight" version if they don't first have a porker?
like road, we had aero, now its aero + lightweight
Given that you can buy an off the peg Specialized race bike at under 19lbs then I'm going with no.
What has changed is where the priorities of mainstream MTBer lie, or where they're told that they should lie. The whole family of bikes from light to heavy is still available, your view appears to be coloured by something - either what your mates ride or what the press tells you you should like.
I ride an XC 100mm FS for my main bike. It's not slow on descents now it has a dropper and given that much of my riding is tight single-track rather than rocky blasts, I don't yearn for more travel for most of it. I would like a long travel trail bike but only as a third option.
Feel free to shop for a lighter bike - there are plenty out there.
I want to say yes but ..... I have a very light mtb, it feels like cheating when climbing, however it’s pants coming down. We have DH bikes in the house, great at coming down and never going to climb. I am amazed how capable a modern (not that light) enduro bike is at going up and down.
No - agree with molgrips
I’d change the question to… “are many people buying bikes that are too heavy for their needs?”
People are buying way more capable bikes than ever before… not everyone needs to be. Lighter bikes are still available. And most of us could easily just swap out to lighter faster tyres etc if we were prepared for them to be less robust and confidence inspiring.
Guy Kes wrote something on this, recently… I’ll dig it out…
I dont think they are. A 35lb enduro shred sled is fit for purpose at that weight. I do think though however that many peopme buy shred sleds for bimbling, and therefore think their bike is too heavy. lf ya catch my drift
My Hightower is a good 7lb heavier than the yeti asr5 it replaced with alike for like groupset . Had to get fitter for the climbs but it certainly feels more strong and stable on the descents. As Teresa may would say.
TBH I think there's just more range than there used to be, you can still buy a light trailbike. Though, bigger wheels have added weight to pretty much everything.
It's just that now there's a lot more heavier, more capable bikes in the weight class above than there used to be. Especially at the cheaper end of the market, budget big-hitters are much more common now.
Maybe the choice of light trailbikes has reduced as a result but there's still plenty out there. I do wonder though if maybe the "default" bike that people tend to choose has got chunkier than it needs to be? For me it's great that you can have a 160mm 29er that can genuinely do anything, but that doesn't make it the right choice for most people.
What Kelvin says for the most part, but agree that even the bikes that are arguably more suitable are a bit weighty these days. My T130C was over 30lb stock and it took a lot to get it under that. I do giggle at folks who will only ever ride trail centre reds who insist a 160mm enduro is a prerequisite for their riding, I’m quite happy with a 120mm bike with decent geometry that’s a good few lb lighter thanks!
Not for me. I think the extra weight is worth it.
Both fun- and speed-wise, I’ll take my enduro bike over my XC bike on anything that isn’t uphill or road.
And it’s so nice not having to fix punctures in the ice and snow.
Riding to and from the forest on a big bouncy bike because of Welsh lockdown rules is character-building but probably useful cross-training.
(It’s also pretty unusual as almost everyone else I know is still driving up and riding in groups.)
My enduro bike is 17kg, compared to its equivalent that I owned in 2014 that was 14.5kg.
Whats different? Bigger wheels, tougher tyres, much longer frame, stiffer forks, coil shock, bigger brakes.
I now enjoy no punctures thanks to dual ply tyres (compared to the old paper thin trail tyres back then), better geometry makes me faster up and down, suspension works better too and I can ride bigger, steeper terrain faster.
My viewpoint is that we're shaking off the outdated roadie mentality of "light is right" and looking to function, performance and reliability first, and weight is just a measure of the end product, rather than a target point.
Yes. Everything is bigger than it was. Bigger, wider rims to support bigger, wider, thicker tyres, which allow you to go downhill faster, which requires stiffer frames, forks and bigger brakes.
Frame materials can help keep this weight in check, but only at significant cost. 1*drivetrains which at the top end are lighter than the 2* they replaced, but for the entry level Group-set a are VERY heavy.
The shame of the extra weight is that a lot of it is in the wheels where you feel it most. This will only get worse for riders of traditional bikes as ebikes become more prevalent and weight matters less.
120mm is enough for me and I’ll be looking more toward 100-120mm and sub 12kg for my next ride.
The move to big wheels has added weight to everything.
15 years ago freeride bikes were going out the doors like hot cakes, they were mostly close to 40lbs.
it is an interesting question. i moved from a The Following to a Murmur and didn’t really notice the weight while riding. i did notice how much better the Murmur did everything, though.
then, i had a quick spin on a friend’s Pivot 429 Trail and could not believe how sprightly it felt.
in an ideal world i would have a 120 light travel bike (that new Transition looks ideal) to go along with my 140 bike, but i’d rather do all the riding that i do on my Murmur than on a lighter shorter travel bike.
I bought a 2016 anthem which weighed in at 28lb stock. The 2018 that replaced it was 30lb.
I have no idea why.
I think Kelvin is probably right and the question should have been “are many people buying bikes that are too heavy for their needs?” I was interested in peoples views after reading the Guy Kes article that Kelvin posted the link to
I reckon that dropper posts, especially the latest mentally long ones, account for 1lb of the difference alone.
Would I sacrifice one to save the weight though, no.
Edit. Just went and read the bike perfect article and clicked on one of the links. Funny that a week earlier Guy listed the Specialized Status as one of his picks of the year, saying the it rode great despite weighing 15kg!
I would have said yes 10 or even 5 years ago where a 30lb+ trail bike seemed insane.
Not anymore though, no idea what my Stage 5 weighs but it'll be 30lb+ easy but somehow rides better up, down or along better than any of my old MTB's. It may well be witchcraft but heavy bikes don't fell their weight like heavy bikes used to.
Totally agree with @andyrm
My current bike is edging towards 16kg, easily the heaviest that I've owned. That said, the only times I've ever really noticed the weight of a bike was when I tried an emtb and thought 'holy $hit, this is too heavy' and a friends' light xc bike, where I was worried about breaking it going off a curb.
I totally bought into that whole 'lightweight is better' cult back in the 90's til late 2000's.
Bikes are getting heavier but so are wheels and tyres.
I used to ride with 750g tyres now they are 1000g. My cassette is 526g rather than 350g. Brake discs are bigger as are forks. It all adds up 454g is a lb.
Yep - I think most people probably got the gist of the question being asked. Of course bikes at the extremes has always been available - it's what the modal average weight of the bikes being bought (or the mean average weight of the bikes in your average popular mtb car park) that's the question.
Wider tyres, larger diameter rims, wider rims, dropper posts. It all adds up even if it's like for like travel bikes. But I'd say the capability of bikes in terms of ability to take an average rider down hills swiftly has gone up massively too.
A strange phenomenon has happened over the last 10 years - to a significant chunk of the mtb market Mountain Mayhem or Sleepless in the Saddle (or a Polaris event) would be the highlight of their year or what they were getting fit to be able to do. Now, not so much - people drifted away for more gnar. At the same time gravel bikes have snuck along and become popular. You could argue a Gravel bike would have been perfect for a Polaris event.
If the market had been promoted differently and 100mm travel front and rear was still the default purchase (with an Orange 5 for the adventurous, and a Orange Alpine for your super rad mate with the skillz you only dreamt of off to do the Transalp) would gravel bikes have become a thing? Or did they need the centre of gravity of the mtb market to get a bit more beefy to allow the hole in the market to appear for them to slot into.
I prefer heavier more capable bikes by the way. And tyres. In the summer, if I want speed, I go for faster rolling and less grip, not flimsy sidewalls and bed. So just a touch lighter semi slick on the rear etc. 950g instead of 1050g. And you can take heavy dropper post out of my cold dead hands.
But I also think that short travel lighter builds will become more popular again soon enough.
Nah, I don’t think they are.
BITD, a lightish bike weighed 26lb or so, and would have been a rigid steel 26er.
You can get fs 29ers that are about that weight, and they’ll be far far more capable than my 30 yr old 26er was.
You can get even more capable bikes of course, which may not be that light, but I don’t think an average decent bike now is any heavier than back in the early 90s, despite being ‘better’ in almost every way.
There’s far too much sensible agreement and discussion in this thread!
To mix it up… people are currently buying gravel bikes rather than light mountain bikes (which is what they probably really need). Time for some renaming? Can we call light short travel mountain bikes with narrower rims and smaller faster rolling tyres something new…?
I have a 600m big hill out the back of my garden, 30min solid climb, sections of 20%+ grade before turning it around and booting on the downslopes. My extensive testing on different bikes over a long period has shown that for me anything over 28lbs sucks the pleasure out of climbing and is not for me, had a 26lb Full susser a decade ago that was a joy to climb on. I hold a mildly controversial opinion that modern trail bikes don't climb quite as well as the best Xc geometry bikes from the past (I have a 5010 that sucks compared to an old Ells Epiphany), and that combined with the excessive weight has legitimately pushed many people to E-Bikes to get there smiles back.
You’ve bought eBikes into it! That’s worse than my sin. Thread could go anywhere now…
My current bike weights 17kg (this before I slap a pair of DH tyres later this month). It climbs amazingly due to proper suspension kinematics and geometry, it's totally reliable, super durable and will do everything from trail riding to DH. It's a thing of wonder to be able to just pickup your bike and go for a 40 mile, 1500m elevation gain ride, or for a DH shuttle day knowing that the thing will perform and at the everything will be straight, tyres intact, etc.
Edit: I should add that there are a few places that could be considered weight "free lunches". I was recently choosing between XT and Saint SPD pedals, knowing that I don't care for the Saint pins (had a set some years ago) and that the XT are more than 100g lighter, I went for the XT.
Tyres are something I'm not willing to compromise anymore. I found out long ago that any time I save climbing on lighter tyres I then waste in DH performance, at the trailside repairing them and on my bank account by having to replace them every 2 months
Tyres are interesting. Like, not so long ago, I thought a 700g 2.35 tyre was totally reasonable, in fact I even did stuff like the first daft Kinlochleven enduro on a pair of singleply nevegals. It was just kind of how we rolled. Then I went to the original Butcher Controls (and Butcher SXs for downhill) and that was fine too. But now? At least a kilo at either end and I still feel like I'm pushing teh limit on lightness. Obviously bigger tyres are heavier but it's way more than that.
Couldn't tell you what drove that tbh. My riding's changed but not so massively- I mean, I rode an EWS round on the Controls. That seems like madness now. Maybe the bike industry has been sharpening the rocks?
Wheels got bigger. Rubber is surprisingly heavy, big wheels need more rubber and put it further away from the centre of rotation.
people are currently buying gravel bikes rather than light mountain bikes
If I was after either I would take the light MTB but light MTBs are twice the price (or more) of the equivalent weight gravel bike, backing up the point of this thread. You can still get a light bike but it will cost a lot of money.
It feels like a lot fewer bikes break nowadays, so maybe they were too light before?
A current gravel bike is basically the same as the first MTBs I had, just with different shape handlebars.
The latest enduro bikes are more capable than the freeride bikes of the early 2000s. Probably snap less too!
It was an interesting article.
It's bunny hoping and manuals where you feel the weight.
Tyres and wheels is where you feel it most though. I remember riding a 36-37lb Kona Coiler, with 2.3s, and that was surprisingly sprightly compared to the Spec Enduro I tried next, which ran 2.5s, double wall and despite that being all air shox.
The drive train point he had was very pertinent though.
I'm on 11 speed Sunrace / Shimano, tried Eagle, didn't really appreciate the range. If I was speccing a bike from stock, I think I'd be tempted to go Box 9 and microdrive the front ring.
Might even try it would with 10 speed XT and a 28t on the front!
As most say, things have moved on, tyres have increased in weight, the race for low weight went away and people wanted more durability and strength, same with frames and parts, instead of making them racing weight, they moved to durability again, dropper posts came along and added a pound to the weight, travel went up, where freeride/enduro was 5", it's now up at around 7", i mean nowadays folk call 120mm travel down-country/XC.
Anyway, are they getting heavy, yes, but it's what the market wants, of course we'd love 21lb 170mm full sussers which don't break, but that never came along.
If I was after either I would take the light MTB but light MTBs are twice the price (or more) of the equivalent weight gravel bike, backing up the point of this thread. You can still get a light bike but it will cost a lot of money.
This is a very good point. When I got my gravel bike I also looked at XC MTB's. Came to the conclusion any XC bike I wanted would be twice the price of the gravel bike so went drops.
I've always thought that one reason that one gets such a range of opinion on these things is that a 5lb weight difference has more of an effect on 'feel' for a 160lb rider as a total system weight than it does for say a 200lb rider, especially as a heavier rider could have stronger muscles developed by being accustomed to a heavier mass - so there'll rarely be a consensus as the weight difference is literally having a different effect.
Although tyres have probably put on 200/300g per end, The quality of the ride, grip, confidence and lack of punctures is absolutely 100% totally worth it. There's no way I'd go back to 2.1 Panaracers or Conti Explorers.
As said above depends what you buy went out today in the snow over Cotswolds on my F.S stache she is a heavy girl at 34lbs but climbs well and takes rocky descents so well yet my cross bike is half the weight but you go downhill a lot slower over those rocks thats the way it is.
Interesting discussion.
Looking at media content on mtb from the US, Canada and major mtb centres in Europe, I get the impression that uplifts are becoming ubiquitous at major trail centres. From my own experience, I am also surprised at how little attention is given in bike reviews to climbing qualities relative to say descending / cornering / ease of getting the wheels off the ground. I suspect most mtbers will have a grinding climb somewhere on their ride to gain the elevation to descend.
What I'm saying in a roundabout way is, is there a perception at the business end that mtbs are being used differently? (hence less concern around climbing / weight).
I’ve always thought that one reason that one gets such a range of opinion on these things is that a 5lb weight difference has more of an effect on ‘feel’ for a 160lb rider as a total system weight than it does for say a 200lb rider,
As a 200lb rider I disagree. I notice the difference between my 29er and full suss bike just the same. The wheels on the 29er weight more as well.
Total system weight is a theory bandied about a lot, but what I think ignored is that the bike is a dead weight compared to the rider which can move its weight around. The rider is also used to their own weight so doesn’t exactly feel it.
I agree with the article, people are going out well over biked and lugging a load of weight they ABSOLUTELY NEED (but actually don't). Yes there is a point where light is too light but by and large lighter is better. I've been reading stuff recently where people want to fit DH tyres as their existing ones are too weak?!? Either get on a diet or stop running them with no damn air in them then! DH casings are shit, utterly and totally and an excellent way to make a hard ride utterly bloody miserable*, I gave up riding up proper hills with the sodding EXO's I got to replace my DH's.
*Even more so without a granny ring.
Can I also point out that the very first post had the GK article, seems a bit unfair on the OP that nobody seemingly bothered reading their post properly.
15 years ago freeride bikes were going out the doors like hot cakes, they were mostly close to 40lbs
*looks at Norco Shore*
*shudders*
My large FS 29er weighs bang on 18kg, so, yes, heavy compared to some. It does have a motor though.... (Levo SL Expert - carbon frame, carbon rims). As said by others, the boundary is a blurry area.
