You can buy off-the-shelf 29" XC hardtails that from the likes of Giant, Trek, etc. that weigh in the 22 to 25 lbs range, depending on how much you are willing to spend. That's what similar bikes used to weigh 20 years ago. Back then, DH bikes were generally 40 lbs or more and pedaling them uphill took some commitment. Modern enduro bikes are pretty amazing.
I agree with Guy's article. All else being equal I'd prefer lighter, within reason. More fun and less tiring. Seems like every part of a bike could be made more capable, longer lasting or better in some way, but almost always resulting in more weight. Cumulatively it all adds up to dull, draggy and overbiked in many situations.
Reminds me of a particular local bike shop about 10-15 years ago. 50lb downhill bikes lined up row after row. There's nowhere in hundreds of miles with terrain to warrant a bike like that. And yet bikes that could barely be pedalled (I tried one) sold like hot cakes to riders that never took them anywhere near a real mountain. Presumably because they looked good in a magazine under the likes of Steve Peat.
There's also the issue of lazy designers. Seen a few bikes lately where absolutely no thought has been put into weight or even basic structural analysis that would show certain areas of a frame don't need to be built like a tank. Even carbon frames. For example the latest Trance X and Stumpy Evo frames are 2.5lbs lighter than some comparables, without going crazy.
Seems like every part of a bike could be made more capable, longer lasting or better in some way, but almost always resulting in more
weightcost.
FTFY.
If a Formula 1 team made an enduro bike, it would cost a million pounds (plus another 50 million for R&D), weigh 10 kilos, and fall apart after 50 hours of riding. They could make it last 500 hours, but it would probably weigh 12 kilos, and still cost a million pounds. To build it for 5000 pounds, you need to use off-the-shelf components, so the weight goes up to 15 kilos. All engineering decisions are limited by budget.
All engineering decisions are limited by budget.
BuT hAmBiNi CoUlD dO iT!!1!1
I think rather than fixing it you may have missed my point. Which is almost every way of making a bike more capable adds weight. 4 piston brakes, big rotors, huge cassettes, wider bars, wider hubs, stronger rims, bigger tougher rubber, longer frames, bigger bearings, clipless trail pedals with a cage that in many cases literally does nothing.
Not everything necessarily needs to add cost but incrementally bikes have gotten heavier. These developments are great if you need them, but many riders don't and are overbiked with all these little things sucking liveliness from the ride. Which is the point Guy was making.
many riders don’t and are overbiked
It's not that bikes are getting heavier, then, it's that people are buying bikes that are overbuilt for what they need. Doesn't stop you from buying the bike that best suits you.
Not everything necessarily needs to add cost but incrementally bikes have gotten heavier.
Light, strong, cheap. Pick any two.
Where are all these light bikes that people can choose?
A Canyon Exceed CF5 (carbon framed XC bike) is a £2,000 hardtail that still weighs 12.25 kg.
Guessing those that are saying there are loads of light bikes to choose from have a high budget...
The Giant XTC is listed at £1,499. Not an entry level bike, but you've never been able to get a lightweight bike for an entry level price.
https://www.giant-bicycles.com/gb/xtc-slr-29-1-2021
Something I noticed years ago is that Japanese websites generally include the weight, whereas UK ones do the "weight will vary according to size, etc." thing. The Japanese website lists a similar spec XTC as sub-12 kg.
https://www.giant.co.jp/giant21/bike_datail.php?p_id=00000064
A higher spec carbon version is listed as about 10 kg.
https://www.giant.co.jp/giant21/bike_datail.php?p_id=00000062
Seems to be similar to this version listed at £3,999.
https://www.giant-bicycles.com/gb/xtc-advanced-29-1
A 22 lb XC hardtail has never been cheap, so the idea that bikes have gained several kg is comparing apples to oranges. There are light bikes available off the shelf, but they will have skinny XC tyres, XC forks, and no dropper post. If you want beefy wheels and tyres, long travel, and a dropper post, that's going to add weight, just like how DH bikes used to be heavier than XC bikes.
Edit: I just noticed that that high-end Japanese version has a dropper post. The UK version doesn't.
And this XTC 1 from 2010 (£1500 at time) was also around 12kg.
So same price and same weight so in fact bikes may have got lighter for same price when factoring in inflation!
weigh in the 22 to 25 lbs range. That’s what similar bikes used to weigh 20 years ago
Well if you insist on missing the point again my hardtail 20 years ago was a 19 lb xl scandium Scott. WTF happened lol!?
my hardtail 20 years ago was a 19 lb xl scandium Scott.
How much did it cost? What components did it have? Was it an off-the-shelf bike or custom built?
Back then, the 65 mm travel RS Sid was the standard XC racing fork. The modern 29" version weighs roughly the same but has 100 mm travel and a 15 mm axle. It also has the benefit of being more rigid than soggy noodles.
XC racers used to run 11-28 9-speed cassettes and ditch the granny ring to save weight. XTR groupsets were just as pricey then as they are now. Average riders weren't strong enough to run that gearing for normal riding.
XC rims were generally 17 mm width and people used to run 26 x 1.8 semislicks converted to tubeless. You'd probably be looking at 500 g max for a tyre, rimstrip, and sealant. A 2.2 knobbly tyre was considered to be quite wide and would have added a couple of hundred grams per wheel, even if you stuck with lightweight XC casings.
Foam grips, cut-down non-dropper seatposts, rim brakes, etc. were all normal on XC bikes. Serious weight-weenies would use titanium bolts and remove any bottle cage bolts to shave a few grams. Great if you're a pro XC racer, useless if you're just out having fun with your mates.
Problem is, those bikes were unrideable for the average trail rider, the tyres had no grip, the brakes sucked in wet weather, the forks were flexy and lacked travel...
my hardtail 20 years ago was a 19 lb xl scandium Scott. WTF happened lol!?
I'm going to guess here, but if it was like my old bike of that era (an Easton Elite frame built up with boutique light parts), here's there the difference will be:
29" wheels vs 26"
100mm fork travel that works rather than 48mm of elastomer and carbon Shocktech crap that was light but useless
Disc brakes vs V brakes
Bars wider and stronger than the USE 580mm ones I had. Which bent.
Same with the seatpost
Tyres able to withstand a dirty look without slashing the sidewalls
Longer geometry so more material in the frame
Interesting that GK's piece ended on tyres. My 2009 alloy Anthem weighs 23.9lbs, mainly because the wheels are 24-spoke Hope Pro 3/Crests and the tyres are Racing Ralphs. I bought an XTC Advanced 27.5 and was shocked to find that it was heavier than the Anthem. It wasn't just that it measured heavier, it felt positively ponderous compared to the Anthem. It turned out that all of the weight was in the stock tyres and wheels, and swapping to a ZTR Crest wheelset (thanks Charlie!) and Schwalbe Evo tyres instead of the OEM things completely transformed the ride. Similarly when I got the Jeffsy, junking the 1200g Onza Ibexes in favour of some 800g rubber made the bike feel a lot better - for me. But I'm 70kg and never ride anything gnarlier than Coed-y-Brenin, so I accept that other people's needs may differ.
I was going to say that if we want light bikes then we can just rewind 20 years.... No thanks.
Enduro has meant more of a focus on longevity than weight and bikes are getting bigger (frames, rims, tyres, wheels) so weight increases are inevitable. There is an argument that a lot of people are overbiked but if you only have one bike then compromise is necessary. There has also been slow progress for manufacturers to introduce modern geometry on shorter travel, lighter bikes compared to long travel bikes (YT Izzo Vs Capra for example).
I’ll be honest. I’m overbiked.
But for the mtb I want something that’s fine uplifted in the Alps and I’ll put up with the weight the rest of the year.
If I want light I’ll get the gravel bike out.
IMO most folk are over-biked most of the time, unless they constantly ride trails that need the bike to be 'over-built'.
When I lived down south I had a 456Ti built strong & light (and therefore not cheap), at 22lbs and perfect. I moved to the Tweed Valley and slowly destroyed many of the components while accepting it needed to be stronger - ended up at 27lbs, even though in that time it also became 1x.
My Flaremax is now nearer 34lbs, and perfect for anything Scotland can throw at it - and as I said in another post regarding climbing, still climbs within a whisker of the lightweight 456Ti.
I'm still bothered by weight and do still follow the strong & light approach - but the component(s) has to work for me and my rides. So it's 203 rotors, 4 pot brakes, 1200g tyres etc etc.
Personally I like a light bike. My fatty is 32lb which is too heavy and my MTB is 24 lbs.
It’s an interesting article but Guy states two facts which aren’t:
1. Downhill bikes are quicker if they’re lighter. That hasn’t been proven by anyone and many teams are running alloy frames not carbon despite the weight penalty.
2. Lighter bikes handle better. They handle different for sure but I prefer how my Levo feels downhill (motor off) to any normal bike I’ve ridden. Suspension works better, more stable without needing insanely long wheelbase or crazy slack head angle, hops and gets airborne nicely and gives me confidence to jump. If heavier bikes handled worse then I’d hate this 50lbs beast.
@squirrelking , if you want to go down that route of reasoning, then, on behalf of those guys getting DH casings, I might suggest that if you ever started to ride proper trails at proper race speeds, sometimes among actual EWS racers, then you maybe could understand the idea. Or, instead of suggesting others to lose weight, we could suggest you to get stronger to be able to pedal heavy tyres uphill.
But I digress.
About this whole "things are heavier nowadays", my biggest question for everyone is the following: would we be having this conversation if we didn't actually knew the weights of old and new bikes?
By this I mean, are people actually complaining that newer bikes climb worse and are worse to throw around than their older predecessors, or are we simply focusing on a isolated number and complaining that it increased? Is the fact that this number is higher actually damaging people's riding experiences, or is this just a remaining of the old lighter=better thing?
As before, it's all horses for courses, 15 years ago it was a race to sub 20lb hardtails for a lot of folk, weight weenies was a thing for many, and most routes were XC based, nowadays we do more stuff, within an hour of me there's FoD, Flyup 417, Wind Hill, etc, so i can be doing an XC route hunting for stuff one day, and then hitting Wind Hill the next, overbiked one day, using it properly the next.
That for me is the biggest difference, 15-20 years ago you had a pretty well defined line between the XC/Trail stuff, then the DH/Enduro stuff, nowadays it's all a grey area, you have parks with everything in one place, so a lot of people buy a bike that can do the thing they 'want' to do at some point and live with just enjoying riding, even with the extra weight, again due to a lot using bespoke routes and parks, any reduction in distance can be accommodated pretty easily with shortcuts and so on.
If you have a look at a few of Guy’s videos he waxes lyrical about Santa Cruz which are always a bit porky, even his favourite tallboy is heavier than the epic evo or spur. I do agree with him though, especially for my kind of riding.
Foam grips, .............. etc. were all normal on XC bikes.
whats wrong with foam grips? I have them on all my bikes. Saves a bit of weight and works well. whats not to like?
Remember that 10 years ago the general consensus was that it was necessary to carry a bulging camelbak mule (10lbs plus) just to go for a trail ride, with all the requisite spare parts and tools.
If you have a look at a few of Guy’s videos he waxes lyrical about every single review bike...
FTFY
Where are all these light bikes that people can choose?
A Canyon Exceed CF5 (carbon framed XC bike) is a £2,000 hardtail that still weighs 12.25 kg.
Guessing those that are saying there are loads of light bikes to choose from have a high budget…
They weren't cheap 15 years ago. My Heihei scandium FS (I still have the frame if anyone wants it.... stealth ad...!) came in at about 21.5lbs in a custom build and it cost me about £3,300 which is about £5k in todays' money. So there's no point comparing it to a £2k bike now! Not to mention that the £ was stronger at that time as well.
Must admit I struggle to find enthusiasm to take my ~13Kg Marasa for pleasure rides, compared to when I often ran my Wazoo fatbike with 29er wheels at ~10.5Kg, it feels so much more sluggish up inclines and there's plenty of small ramps up to ~20% locally.
However, I did feel the urge to ride outdoors late afternoon yesterday and after a relative struggle to swap the 28mm GP 4 Season for a tight clearance 50mm Schwalbe Century, it somehow felt a bit more fun on the ~15 mile pootle.
In fairness, when I swapped out the fatbike rear 29er for the fatbike 26er ~12 months ago due to freehub issues, it made it a similar weight to the Marasa and made pleasure rides less appealing.
The people above saying you can still buy a light XC bike - you can, but that's because weight is still important for that market. For some reason trail riders and enduro riders have been duped into accepting much heavier bikes than they should.
Weight has always been important to me. I can tell the difference. I think where riders are being short changed at the moment is around the 140/150mm travel point in most companies' ranges. In 2014 I had a Stumpjumper Evo with Likes, a dropper post and 2.4" tyres. It had good geometry, 150mm travel front and rear and weighed 27lbs. In the interim I've gone through three bikes with similar travel - a 35lb Commencal, a 33lb carbon Transition, a 34lb aluminium Transition and now a 30lb Evil.
My Evil now has 130mm rear, 140mm front. And it's still 30lb. It has XTR. DT's lightest aluminium wheels. Carbon bars and cranks. I built it picking out light parts. And the weight is daft - in a world where there's 35lb DH bikes riders shouldn't be accepting 34lb enduro bikes and 32lb trail bikes. And they certainly shouldn't be paying more than a couple of grand, let alone over £5k, for entry level weight bikes.
While a lot of riders are over biked, six years ago you could have a 150mm bike that was nearer 25lb than 30 and so light enough to be fun where it was too much bike but capable in rougher terrain. Now the same bike is too heavy to be enjoyable so the option to be overbiked and still be comfortable has gone. Manufacturers of all bike parts need to up their game.
@squirrelking , if you want to go down that route of reasoning, then, on behalf of those guys getting DH casings, I might suggest that if you ever started to ride proper trails at proper race speeds, sometimes among actual EWS racers, then you maybe could understand the idea. Or, instead of suggesting others to lose weight, we could suggest you to get stronger to be able to pedal heavy tyres uphill
I'd suggest you know nothing about where I ride or what speeds I ride at. I'm simply speaking from personal experience and the topic I referred to actually ended with the OP deciding to up pressure since the concensus was 21psi was rather low and not a good reason to add that weight.
And yeah I probably could get stronger but still don't see the pleasure in hauling DH tyres around when lighter ones are more than enough. There is a big clue in the name.
I'd say that rather than "duped", riders are deciding they don't want tyres that split, they don't want suspension performance that's compromised by lack of a piggyback to save 150g, and they want tougher, wider rims that reflect the riding they do.
I've seen the progression of the Enduro discipline first hand, from racing Superenduro out in Italy from 2012,through EWS and local events too - the fact is, riders are hitting steeper and rougher terrain faster than 8 years ago, and that puts larger loads on their bikes.
I worked out that I could put lighter wheels and tyres, smaller brakes and an online sir shock on my bike, remove the insert in the rear tyre and make it a more "trail" build, at something like 2.5 to 3kg lighter, but it'd then be useless for the type of riding I do.
I think where riders are being short changed at the moment is around the 140/150mm travel point in most companies’ ranges.
Go back 20 years and see what a 150 travel FS bike weighed. 45 pounds was normal. Sub-40 pounds was considered very light.
If you stick to 120 mm or so travel with 32 mm forks and 2.3 tyres (i.e. an XC oriented trail bike), then getting well under 30 pounds isn't too hard. If you want beefier 150 mm travel forks and wide tyres that can survive bashing over rocks, then you're going to be adding several kilos.
@andyrm most riders are not doing the sort of riding you are talking about, most of us are still riding out in the hills (lakes,dales etc ) and how fast you can get down a hill is totally irrelevant, a 30 miles ride in the Dales or Lakes on an 16/17kg very hard work, in reality the market for enduro bikes is very small
an online sir shock
Been stumbling onto transexual porn sites by mistake?
Been stumbling onto transexual porn sites by mistake?
Bloody autocorrect!! 😂😂😂😂😂
For some reason trail riders and enduro riders have been duped into accepting much heavier bikes than they should.
Because people have delusions of grandeur?
They do not ‘have’ to have such big or heavy bikes if they don’t want them. You can buy an off the shelf Stumpjumper Expert that weighs just over 28lbs. Probably the quintessential trail bike you are talking of.
in a world where there’s 35lb DH bikes riders shouldn’t be accepting 34lb enduro bikes and 32lb trail bikes.
A 35lb DH bike only needs to last one race run. It also doesn’t have half a kilo of seat post, can use a razor blade of a seat, runs a cassette a fraction of the weight of a big range, and the rest is fairly comparable weight wise. Enduro bikes ridden by proper racers of proper terrain arguably ride their bikes harder than DH racers now anyway, as the tracks are less groomed, the rider is on the edge physically and just hanging on, smashing through stuff, Vs a 3 minute DH run of pinpoint accuracy.
Manufacturers of all bike parts need to up their game.
Or people need to be honest with the sort of riding they do, and buy something more appropriate?
“ Weight has always been important to me. I can tell the difference. I think where riders are being short changed at the moment is around the 140/150mm travel point in most companies’ ranges.”
It’s not that we can’t tell the difference, plenty of us don’t see it as a problem — and if you were to measure things you’d find lower weight makes very little difference uphill and usually hinders downhill.
Furthermore, 140/150mm travel bikes can be ridden REALLY fast nowadays without being terrifying. Everything is stronger, stiffer and more capable. Bikes are breaking less often despite riders going bigger on them. If you design a 6” bike nowadays you have to assume that owners might take them on numerous uplift days, which is far more punishing to the bike than typical bimbling duties.
If you want a 150mm bike to have 32mm fork stanchions, a little shock, skinny 26” rims, 2.1” tyres, 700mm bars, no dropper post, and a sub 1100mm wheelbase and a tendency to crack after a couple of years of hard riding then I’m sure you could get a bike down to 27lbs from 32.
@squirrelking , exactly, see what I did there? I threw out a bunch of assumptions on how you ride without knowing nothing about you. That's why we should avoid suggesting that people don't know how to set up tyre pressure, or how to ride or that they're overweight without knowing them or their riding in the first place. I wrote that to show this point.
To all of us arguing that "manufacturers should up their game", please keep in mind that's perfectly possible to have bikes will all the performance and resistance of the current ones, at a fraction of the weight. However, there's a rule in engineering, light/cheap/tough, pick 2
Specialized have made some big changes to the 2021 Stumpy expert to reduce it's weight this is from MBR test of it
A bit more Epic, a lot less Stumpy
You’ll hear a lot about weight saving with the new Stumpjumper, perhaps as a reaction to average trail bike weights breaching 30lbs on a regular basis now, and perhaps to keep the Stumpjumper more relevant compared to the lightweight ebike option Specialized Turbo Levo SL. Either way, the new Stumpjumper frame is, according to Specialized, over 100g lighter than the old model, while the top end frame with shock and hardware in size S4 is a claimed 2,420g (alloy frame 3,490g). That’s right up there with other minimal trail bikes such as the Scott Genius Tuned (2,249g) and Transition’s Spur (2,450g).
Slightly disappointing then, that our complete Expert S4 test bike weighed 13.63kg, or just over the 30lb threshold, although it’s still nearly 500g lighter than the Expert Carbon 29 we tested last year. A chunk of change (55g according to Spesh) has been lost by getting rid of Specialized’s signature Horst link – a move that might seem blasphemous to most aficionados, but makes absolute sense when combined with the new Stumpy’s reduced travel.
However, there’s a rule in engineering, light/cheap/tough, pick 2
That is not relevant here though as the cheap part, or the price, can be equivalent between older bikes and current bikes. The Giant XTC was a good example where the weight seems to be about the same for given price over 10 years, i..e the bikes are not getting heavier if you compare the same model/type of bike and bikes have got heavier because people have chosen heavier components to put on them.
Of coure they are. It is ridiculous how heavy they have become and for no good reason.
You cant blame modern geometry because that doesn't add an meaningful weight. Making a top tube 50mm longer in the middle where the material is at its thinnest doesnt add weight. To my mind its all about the engineering and manufactures not properly engineering their products properly and using the correct amount of material. There is a video in this link https://www.pinkbike.com/news/santa-cruz-bicycles-test-lab.html
It shows santa cruz destruction testing an aluminum nomad and a carbon nomad. Not surprisingly the carbon one takes alot more force to break (2050 lbs v 1450lbs). Which to my mind raises 2 possible conclusions. One is that the aluminum bike was never strong enough and not fit for purpose (which I doubt) or the carbon on is over engineered and heaver than it needs to be as it using excess material to make it 40% stronger than the aluminum one. I dont see any alternatives.
When Scott are building a full DH race bike with alloy wheels, a coil shock, and Assegai DH casing tyres that weighs 34lb then you have to wonder why do some companies trail bikes with 140mm of travel weight more than this. The certainly wont need to be stronger than a DH bike, wont need DH tyres or a coil shock so there is 3 to 5 lb straight off the bat that means anything over 30lbs is badly engineered and is heavier that it needs to be. Yes you would add a dropper which will add maybe 1lb back. Mountain biking at the moment seems to be the only speed based sport that wants to make its products heavier. All other branches of cycling have rules to stop them getting lighter than they already are. Motorsport is the same because everyone knows a light car or motorbike is faster than an heavier one.
@kerley yes, it's indeed relevant, because those bikes of some years ago still picked only two, in this case light+cheap. Today it's mostly about tough+cheap.
those stumpy numbers ^^^ are nuts, the wifes medium 2007 ally (think it was the bottom spec) with 140mm travel and flat pedals weighs a smidge over 26lbs
Making a top tube 50mm longer in the middle where the material is at its thinnest doesnt add weight. To my mind its all about the engineering
Firstly, it does. Secondly, longer tubes need different wall thicknesses and/or “tube” profile to keep the same stiffness and strength. More material. The rest of your armchair engineering post I’ll ignore, based on your one attempt to show your understanding.
Thankfully Weightweenies still exists
https://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=163462
I certainly don't have the capability to deal with riding a bike with loads of travel super fast so I don't so I'm still riding a fully rigid MTB, bigger tyres and bigger bars certainly do make it more capable than something I'd have ridden 10 years ago. It's broadly still the same ;0)
I built my bike3 myself from (reasonable weight) frames, every component chosen by me, just like my last few bikes- but they're heavier now than they were. It's not an "industry" thing, we're offered more choice now and maybe people aren't making the best choices for them but that's choice for you.
But, I rode the same 26er enduro bike for years- originally built 140mm as a trailbike and had it down to sub-27lbs, by the end racing EWS rounds and the scottish enduro series and weighing in at about 33-35lbs depending on tyres. That probably comes quite close to mirroring what factory builds were doing in my budget, in the same timescale, and that's no coincidence.
If you want lighter- get rid of the dropper post, that's the best part of half a kilo. Cut your bars down to 600mm. Fit skinny light tyres. Get rid of that stiff fork and fit a 32mm noodle with QR. These are all things you can do yourself, will you? Almost certainly not.
To my mind its all about the engineering and manufactures not properly engineering their products properly and using the correct amount of material.
This is nonsense. Manufacturers are highly profit oriented. Most of their sales are of entry level bikes. High end enduro bikes are a tiny niche. Those high end bikes are really profitable though and the racing thing is good marketing for selling those bikes. The engineering of those bikes is phenomenal, they are massively better than bikes from 20 years ago. But, you can't make a 150 mm travel enduro bike that can smash through rock gardens as light as an XC bike designed mostly to climb up fireroads.
