Wasn’t the importance of a bikes weight debunked long ago??
When talking about a kg here or there no but the importance of weight would be a bigger factor if your bike was 30kg!
It all boils down to why the weight is being added. If because the heavier part is cheaper and fits within budget then fine, if the heavier part is stronger then fine but if you don't care about the difference between a 13kg bike and a 17kg bike then don't worry about it.
It does all come down to where and how you ride. All the weight doesn't matter guys are referring to this stage and that stage where the weight does matter guys seem to be riders out for the laugh and just non competitive riding. I've got a selection of bikes and the one that I regularly have the most fun on is a Kona Honzo cr race 29er. Its light enough that I notice the difference everywhere but for my skill and fitness level it doesn't seem to hinder me. I much prefer a light bike which skims and " dances" along a trail more than a fast bruiser that's faster and more stable. YMMV of course but we all seem to ride differently and for different reasons so our bikes and opinions will always be different too.
YMMV of course but we all seem to ride differently and for different reasons so our bikes and opinions will always be different too.
^^^^^ don't be coming on here talking sense like that! 😂😂😂
My old BFe (circa 2010) is about 1790mm long and weighs a smidge over 13.5kg
My new RocketMAX is about 2070mm long
Multiplying the BFe weight by the same factor (2070/1790) gives me about 15.5kg......which is a bit over what it weighs.
Bigger bikes weigh more....seems fine to me
Maybe we should be comparing density instead of outright weight? 😂
But you are. This entire thread is basically, “People buy bikes that I disapprove of, even though I can still do whatever I like, I still don’t like it when other people have fun.”
Nope, that's just how you have read it. I'm judging no one for their choices, just discussing weight creep. If I seem judgmental I apogise, that's not the intent here.
Except they’re not. All forks are bendy – it’s impossible for a lever that long and skinny yet that light to not be bendy under the loads of a rider.
I wasn't being completely literal, of course anything will bend. But it really isn't an issue for me, as soon as it starts to self steer and send me off course I'll be sure to upgrade.
YMMV of course but we all seem to ride differently and for different reasons so our bikes and opinions will always be different too.
Indeed. For full disclosure I'm 63kg soaking wet, this may be a major factor in my biases.
I think also where you ride and terrain that you have near you dictates a lot of these conversations. The bike you need for XC in the Chilterns or Surrey is different to the one you need for Calderdale or the Peaks
This ^^.
Horses for Courses
(Typically) Everyone rides different trails, with different styles of riding in different conditions...and er, different bodies/fitness levels.
So gnar-ing the rad until you’re totally stoked may demand a different bike than rider-x who’s planning on a trans-Cambrian or similar epic
For full disclosure I’m 63kg soaking wet, this may be a major factor in my biases.
I'd say so - I'm bang on 80kg and can really notice the difference between a stiffer and a more flexible fork for example, and running flats means I am harder on rear tyres. If I was 17kg lighter, the difference would almost certainly be less pronounced I reckon.
squirrelking
Free MemberYour point about droppers though, I’m sick of hearing how they are essential and how someone would rather give up suspension than their dropper.
See, I never say essential (though I now hate riding without one) but I would absolutely give up suspension before my dropper. In fact, I have! I've usually got some sort of rigid bike on the go and I always fit a dropper to those, because for me riding a rigid bike is fun and different, whereas riding without a dropper is just annoying.
the essential aspect, when one of your riding group gets an innovation that lets them ride faster or brake later then if you you want to keep up these innovations could be considered essential.
and if they are going faster on a heavier bike, heavier bikes could be considered more fun.
See, I never say essential (though I now hate riding without one) but I would absolutely give up suspension before my dropper. In fact, I have! I’ve usually got some sort of rigid bike on the go and I always fit a dropper to those, because for me riding a rigid bike is fun and different, whereas riding without a dropper is just annoying.
This.
Never thought I'd see 150mm sektors with straight steerer described as rock solid, I found the fore aft flex quite alarming, they ended up on my girlfriends bike a few years ago and even she noticed the flex compared to her domain forks that were just to heavy for her as she was about 60kg.
Never thought I’d see 150mm sektors with straight steerer described as rock solid
I suspect they are being compared to those old elastomer things that people used to put on lightweight XC bikes back in the old days. I went from Rockshox Indys to Psylos and thought the Psylos were incredibly stiff. Until I tried some proper DH forks.
No they're being compared to the 130mm Revs, 32mm Marzocchis of various flavours (Z1's to Super T's) and the actually flexy Shiver SC's and 30mm Marzocchi Z1's. That's the ones I remember at any rate.
As I said I'm 63kg, feel free to ask for the basis of any other assumptions rather than speculating pointlessly.
I've used Revs and Rebas a lot, including 150 mm Revs with 32 mm stanchions (which I reduced to 130 mm). They are decent XC trail forks, but not renowned for their stiffness. I've tried Shiver SCs a long time ago. They were well damped but heavy and famous for lacking torsional stiffness. I haven't tried 32 mm Zocchis, and it's a long time since I've tried the old 30 mm Z1s. Back in the day, they seemed amazing, but I suspect they were probably about as stiff as the old Psylos.
If you're only 63 kg, you're probably not going to notice the flex as much as heavier riders. Someone who's 6'4" and 220 pounds is not going to much enjoy a Sektor at 150 mm travel.
Light, strong, expensive: choose two.
Light, strong, expensive: choose two.
If you are going to use an overused phrase at least get it right 🙂
Strong, light, cheap: pick two
To actually answer this question somebody needs to put together a table of key components and then list the equivalent product from 2010 and 2020 with inflation adjusted prices.
I can't be bothered to do that but I would guess that like for like (as much as it is possible to do) then bikes have not got any heavier.
Referring again to the XTC example;
£1500 for 12kg XTC in 2010
£1500 for 12kg XTC in 2020
The 2010 XTC cost more in today's money so that bike has got lighter.
Short answer is no. Light bikes are still out there. XC bikes are more capable than ever and just as light as they were 10-15 years ago.
The difference is that the centre of gravity of the MTB market has changed towards more gravity oriented bikes.
Hasn't anyone read the latest mag? Three bikes, all with more than 100mm of travel, one at 26lb and two under 25lb. So about the weight of a 2009 Anthem X, considered to be miraculously light at the time. But these new bikes have 29in wheels instead of 26in, 2.3in tyres instead of 2.1in, 34mm forks instead of 30mm, dropper posts, and the lightest one has 4-piston brakes. So it's clear that light bikes are still available, although admittedly these are all £5k or over. But it's also clear that these are not 'mainstream' bikes, but are considered a bit of a weird niche. They would all be great for the sort of riding I do.
34mm forks instead of 30mm
High-spec Anthems of that era would have had Fox 32s or Rockshox Sids, which had 32 mm stanchions by that time. From memory, the Sids went to 32 mm around 2005 or 2006. Apart from that bit of pedantry, I totally agree with what you said.
I'm always amazed at how few broken bikes you see on things like the Friday Fails videos. I've been around mountain biking long enough to see dozens of fork failures, head tubes snapped off, wheels collapsing on much smaller accidents.
CEN probably has a lot to do with it. I remember seeing that Cy Turner video talking about it and before then you could put out pretty much anything.
I'm also in the camp of being happy with a few extra pounds if it means tyres that work, dropper posts, stiff forks and generally stuff that won't fall to bits and ruin a ride.
I’m always amazed at how few broken bikes you see on things like the Friday Fails videos. I’ve been around mountain biking long enough to see dozens of fork failures, head tubes snapped off, wheels collapsing on much smaller accidents.
Absolutely this! When i was starting out in the mid 90s, half the fear of trying a new drop or jump was will my handlebar snap, am i going to wreck the square taper again, will the wheel survive. It took me a long time to accept the capabilities of modern full sussers because i was carrying the scars of those previous failures! We can ride so hard these days and not even think about pedals snapping off or forks shearing at the crown. I'm totally happy with a weight penalty for bikes that aren't on the edge of failure on every downhill
Hasn’t anyone read the latest mag?
The what now?
We can ride so hard these days and not even think about pedals snapping off or forks shearing at the crown.
You just reminded me of the legendary stories of the early Rockshox forks where the damping rod would explode out the top of the fork and hit riders in the face. Quite distracting, from all accounts.
Ha plastic top caps! My friend had a pair of psylos that would fire the top caps out at his chest on drops to flat! I had a set of indy xcs that slowly over time choppered out as the crown join failed. And we weren't even good riders, this was all from really tame stuff compared to nowadays.
High-spec Anthems of that era would have had Fox 32s or Rockshox Sids, which had 32 mm stanchions by that time
I had a 2009 Anthem X 1 - the orange one. It had Sids. I couldn't actually remember the fork diameter - no one really made a big thing about it back then - so happy to be corrected. They were considerably less flexy than the Manitou SX Ti that I had on my previous bike - a '99 Mount Vision - but I still managed to bend them permanently dropping into a rut that I hadn't seen coming. The bike was massively improved by the 120mm 2013 Sids I replaced them with.
<edit> I just found the order email. I paid £329 for those Sids in 2013 - what do this year's Sids cost? </edit>
Is there a chicken and egg scenario arising where:
magazine/peer pressure convinces you you need a gnarlier bike = heavier bike = gnarlier terrain required to make it worthwhile = even gnarlier bike required = even heavier bike = e-bike!
Could explain the rise in popularity of gravel bikes as people re-learn how much fun it is possible to have on your relatively tame local trails if you have a light pedal-able bike under you...
Is it perhaps the emphasis has moved from riding everywhere to winch and plummet. Every time I mention to folks I love alpine riding, the assumption seems to be that means bike parks with monster jumps and drops. But for me it's all day riding on natural trails with hours of climbing and maybe hike-a-bike, a heavy bike would be a nightmare. I compromise on tyres and just choose lines carefully and have never punctured in that terrain. The biggest issue for me seems to be that the equivalent bike now costs £8k plus, nearly twice my old beast when over the same period wages have no where near kept up with the change.
As I recall, the Reba came out about 2005 and replaced the Duke and Psylo as a trail fork (which I think had 30 mm stanchions). It had 32 mm stanchions and was a big improvement over the competition. It pretty much saved Rockshox from going under. From memory, U-Turn Psylos were about 2 kg, the Rebas were probably nearly a pound lighter. The Revelation and Pike started out as beefier versions of the same basic 32 mm design.
I think the Sids before that had 28 mm stanchions and weighed 1400 grams or so. The were very flexy. Their competition was the Manitou R7 (s****), which was similarly flexy. Rockshox replaced those original Sids with a slimmed down Reba, so the Sid, Reba, Rev, and Pike were all based on the same 32 mm stanchions. I'm not sure when the Sids moved to 32 mm stanchions, but I guess around 2006. The R7 and Fox 32s just couldn't compete with the 32 mm Rockshox forks, so Fox went to even bigger stanchions.
Now you can get a 29" Sid that weighs about the same as the horrible old original 26" version, but has more travel. Quite impressive.
thols2
Free MemberFrom memory, the Sids went to 32 mm around 2005 or 2006. Apart from that bit of pedantry, I totally agree with what you said.
Yup, and at some point they gained a 120mm option which was pretty terrible tbh but the 100mm was great. Was there another generation of 32mm Sid chassis around 2010?
Thing with stiffness, I spent years with a coil lyrik (old beastly model) on one bike and a coil-converted 150mm Revelation Team (2010, last of the 32s, straight steerer), both 20mm axles and tbh yes the Rev was much less stiff but it worked, going between the two could be odd for the first few corners (and I swapped them between bikes sometimes for lolz) but I never felt like the Rev was totally out of its depth. It wasn't a light chassis after all.
Not true of the 120mm Sid, or the two 140mm Fox 32s I had, neither of which really worked properly (the Sid had a lovely damper but it might as well have been a turnkey because it bound up terribly at 120mm, I dropped it to 100mm after about 2 rides and it was ace. Maybe I was riding it harder than it was designed, for but top end XC racers are faster than me.)
And the Fox as well as binding was like drawing a bow when braking, it bent backwards enough to easily see it, then sprang back when it lost grip after it bound up and stopped suspending properly, just horrible when braking hard but pretty funny in the car park. Hateful things. Like I mentioned earlier, the 34 was entirely invented because Fox couldn't make a good long travel 32mm fork while Rockshox could, but Fox being Fox managed to turn that into a selling point.
I guess the point of all this waffle, is that the Revs were fairly flexy but they still worked- it was noticable but I never really felt it was a problem. But flex can mess badly with how a fork actually works as well as just being noticable.
But like I mentioned earlier, the main thing about a 32mm Rev or Sektor, is that it weight about the same as the equivalent 34/35mm forks. They've gained stiffness and strength without giving away weight, I guess just because bigger tubes are stiffer for the same weight. When you took those old Revs or an OG pike to bits there was a lot of metal in those skinny tubes.
Light, strong, expensive: choose two.
If you are going to use an overused phrase at least get it right 🙂
Strong, light, cheap: pick two
Not quite sure where to start...
“Not quite sure where to start…”
GSCE English language - comprehension?
I bought a top-of-the-range carbon superbike just over a decade ago, most I've spent on a bike, and most I'm ever likely too.
Yeti ASR-C, custom spec, lightest everything, was somewhere around 20Lbs IIRC. 26", 100mm travel each end, about as good as you could get for XC racing (well, it was fast. But also unreliable)
Last year I had a go on a friend's S-Works Epic, again top-of-the-range but off the peg, whatever Specialized's lightest full suss is. 29" and (I think, but wait to be corrected) 120mm each end. That was lighter, I would guess by around 2Lbs.
Like for like, his newer biker is much lighter, and also bigger. Vast improvement.
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However, as a lot of people have said above, the types of bike people are buying has changed drastically. It is possible to buy a lighter bike than it was a decade ago, but folks don't put such emphasis on weight, they want bigger, longer travel bikes, and probably stronger, and so the weight of the 'average' bike has gone up as the decending capabilities of the average bike have increased. Whether people are fully utilising these abilities and actually need it or if it just looks cool (see 4x4 drivers...) I don't know. I see far more enduro and DH bikes nowadays and far fewer pure XC bikes
.
Another comparison, my neighbour's two/three year old YT downhill bike feels lighter than my 2008 Kona Stinky. Big bikes seem to have got lighter too, on that sample of one, but whereas my Stinky would have been unusual, his YT is more like a 'normal' bike nowadays.
