Forum menu
doesn't this all depend on the terrain? i felt a light bike was most advantageous riding round thetford, which has no hills. It just *feels* so much nicer to whiz through the trees throwing the bike around when it doesn't weight very much.
I don't understand this "light kit must be fragile" nonsense either. I'm running a pair of 3 year old Stans Olympics and they're bang true running on 2.1" Schwalbes used for normal XC stuff- red routes, local trails, races, that sort of thing.
In a real world application on beefier bikes, a 27-28lb 6" bike need not be silly. Just look at Lapierre bikes. Very tough, very fast, very light. And guaranteed to be more fun all round than some 33lb bumplehammer.
What's your point Macavity?
Want me to post pictures of all my non-broken carbon stuff? 🙂
As for fragility - get the lightest kit you can be confident of not breaking. Surely this is obvious? Personally, I will run all but the very lightest of kit.
A typical thoroughbred horse weighs over 1000lbs but as little as 5lbs of handicapping makes a significant different to its position in a race!
Depends if the race is uphill or downhill and whether the jockey is wearing a camelbak. 🙂
Just put my lighter wheels on my 456Ti, now weighs 24lb with pedals and cruds.
Not bad for a 20" frame running 140mm bolted forks, 183mm discs, 2.1 tyres, a wide riser bar and a triple chainset.
I go out for fast 2hr rides with a group each week, some of whom are incredibly fit (at least IMO). The fastest guy by a significant margin rides a heavy 120mm full sus!
The bikes are a mix of alu, carbon and steel hardtails and alu full-sussers. There is no correlation to who is fastest and what bike they ride - the fastest guys are the fittest guys.
Not sure what my point is. Maybe, get fit first and then worry about bike weight later.
chiefgrooveguru, interesting point, I like that.
The bikes are a mix of alu, carbon and steel hardtails and alu full-sussers. There is no correlation to who is fastest and what bike they ride - the fastest guys are the fittest guys
come on it's easy ,,, two indentical guys one on a 40lb bike and one on a 20lb bike climbing to the top of snowdon
place your bets i know who i would put my hard earned cash on
Weight saved by weight weenie-ness?say 4kg
Total performance improvement?
Not very much at all really....
...over a 2km climb, losing 4kg makes you 8.06 seconds faster.
If you climbed a 2km climb 3 times, I would guess that you wouldn't get times within 8 seconds of each other; so your presumed performance enhancement is lost in the noise...
so you'll be strapping 4kg of lead* to your bike and claiming it makes you no slower?
or, more importantly to many here i suspect, makes you have no less fun??
*or 4kg feathers, or 4kg of whatever, yes i know.
Weighed my new saddle today, 290grams off making my roadbike 7.5kg
But if I bought new wheels, 500g off, new chainset 200g, 100g cassette and chain and a better finishing kit 150g easy...
Hmm if I lost 20kg off my waistline and it's free/cheaper!
I must admit I've started on a bit of a mission to loose weight off my Nicolai as I've started entering more Enduros and the like.
Swapped the coil U-turn Rev's for Dual Airs - about 700g's there (I think)
Not spent much yet, but I've gone from 2.35" Maxpro HR's to 2.25" Nobby Nics and lost about 200g's of each tyre.
Swapped my post from a pro-lite one to a Thomson and saved 100g's (primarily 'cos I liek how the Thomson looks)
Swapped the bars from Sunline V2's to USE Atom Carbons - must be 150g's lighter.
Also fitted new XT mechs & shifters - only because I wanted them for crimbo though 😆
So for not a massive outlay I've saved about 500g's, which is nice, next step is a new set of wheels as DT5.1's on Pro II's are overkill for me now - they were on a 160mm travel FS and I did weigh 87kgs, now I'm a good 7kg's lighter so fancy some lighter wheels - should be a saving of around 300-500g's depending on what I get.
So overall, with minimal outlay I've shed a good 1.2kg's and almost 0.5kg's of rotating mass - and I have noticed a difference - feels nicer. Being fitter probably helps too 😆
In a real world application on beefier bikes, a 27-28lb 6" bike need not be silly. Just look at Lapierre bikes. Very tough, very fast, very light. And guaranteed to be more fun all round than some 33lb bumplehammer.
Hummm funny you think they are fast... The only lapierre that gets on the podium of enduros series is nicola's one. I know several people who have tried one and they say it's a barge. If all goes well, I might be able to try one very soon right size for me and rider similar weight so I can have an opinion. ANd light kit IS fragile, there is no secret in the bike industrie. Alloy is alloy. So if you shed some weight out of a rim (fro example DT) it means less metal (in this case on the side of the rim) so they are more fragile (in this case they get dinged easily).
I don't use a Camelbak...I also don't carry a tube.
😯 😯 😯 😯
Now you've said a lot of stuff making no sense... But this one is probably the best.
How do you drink? Or do you stay on tarmac roads? What if you punctures? I can't really see myself walking 4 hours with the bike oon the back to go down to the car...
Sorry for giving this thread a new lease of life, but just read up on some of the maths and the kinetic energy of a moving wheel is roughly equivalent to mass x velocity squared, whereas the kinetic energy of the non rotating parts of a bike is HALF mass x velocity squared - hence the preference to reduce weight of wheels tyres etc - 500g saved on the wheels is worth 1kg on the rest of the bike.
However even if you have a 5% difference in potential energy & 5% difference in overall kinetic energy when comparing a 30lbs bike plus rider to a 20lbs bike plus rider - the rotating mass accounts for only about 1% of this difference.
All these feable percentages got me wondering if the correlation is actually non linear, for example I can easily run a half marathon in 2hrs but if I added a 30lb pack on my back (15% of my body weight) I doubt that I'd be able to complete one in 2hrs 18mins - in fact I doubt that I'd even be able to run up some of the hills that I normally can at all - ie I'd be more than 15% slower - so can the reverse not also be true to some extent when climbing a hill on a bike?. Aside from all the obvious "not a good example you are carrying all the weight on your back" comments, what about other non linear effort gains such as increasing from fast walking pace of 4mph to running at 8mph (most reasonably fit people can achieve this with a bit of training) to then running at 12mph which is only the domain of top athletes at half marathon distances. ie there are huge leaps in fitness required to achieve only small improvements in performance at the top end of the scales.
Just a few thoughts to ponder anyway & in answer to the OP's original question, well if nobody else is then I obviously am.... 😳
.
.
. and I've already decided to swap my 570g all mountain rims for some 440g ones whatever anyone says
Juan I think he meant he doesn't use a Camelbak during XC races.
Dickyboy - good point. Most of the would-be physicists on this thread only talked about the effort required to gain potential energy during a climb. You put what I was trying to say a better way - on singletrack with braking and accelerating, most of your effort goes into the kinetic energy of the bike.
And it definitely is non-linear. I can ride at 300W for half an hour, but not at 315W. But what they are saying is given a particular power, if you+bike weigh 5% more you'll only be 5% slower winching your way up a long climb. And I agree - IF it's a smooth road or fire-road climb. I think 5% less weight on the bike makes a significant difference to singletrack.
How do you drink? Or do you stay on tarmac roads? What if you punctures? I can't really see myself walking 4 hours with the bike oon the back to go down to the car...
Sorry, our all-knowing French associate was demanding answers... Actually, whilst I own a few, I don't tend to use a Camelbak ever, they irritate me! I drink on climbs or bits of fireroad, even with a Camelbak I can't say I've ever decided to drink whilst descending! I take a bottle, or two sometimes, with a view to topping up en route, it's not really a hardship frankly!
I don't carry a tube because in the 8 years I've been using tubeless I've never had to put one in. I've had very few punctures, those I've had the sealant has sealed, or in a couple of instances I've torn the tyre irrepairably, and a tube wouldn't help.
I'm very happy to admit that my average ride (like many I imagine) is 3-4 hours. If I was doing the epic rides that you clearly are where I'm 350 miles for the nearest badger I would likely take a spare tube and stuff, but seeing as an average ride is 40 miles or so at most, and I'm rarely that far from home it's just not a huge issue for me. I usually pass several bike shops on a ride too, so if it was really necessary I could just buy a spare tube!
Is this not a wonderful example of you being right, and everyone else being wrong, or is it just a chance to wave your c0ck about, because I'm struggling to see it from here...
[i]or in a couple of instances I've torn the tyre irrepairably, and a tube wouldn't help.[/i]
Course it would, as long as you carried a tyre 'boot' to fill in the gap.
Did the very same on a recent ride with a fellow STW after flint ripped my tyre up.