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Can't seem to post a pic, so link to the Ragley Big Al above. So question is this: I purchased a 2022 Big Al and it's a great bike, I added a dropper and 140mm Revelation. The bike is a bit knackering on long XC rides. I'm thinking of replacing the wheels with a set of Hunt XC wheels (1720gms). This will be a pretty decent weight saving compared to the stock Nukeproof Horizon wheels. Worth the extra £320 to make it more efficient on long rides ? Who's running two wheels sets?
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The bike is currently pretty chunky with a 2.25 Nooby Nic rear and a 2.4 Wicked Will front. I'm thinking new hunt wheels and a light set of XC tyres should really add some much need efficiency along with clipless pedals? Can't justify a new XC bike like the Sonder Dial, so thinking of easy upgrades.
The bike is a bit knackering on long XC rides
These Ragleys are not really traditional xc in the sense you seem to be seeking, especially at 140mm.
Best bet is to demo some more xc focused bikes around the 23-25lbs weight with 100-120mm forks.
That will give you a really good indication of the direction of travel for your purchasing.
New bike (loads of bargains at mo) or lots of xc focused upgrades.
Or, you may find you don't enjoy a more purist xc focused experience at all.
<p>I recently stuck a 2.6” rock razor on the back of my hardtail (replacing my 2.6” winter Forekaster). Bike is so much faster rolling.</p><p>Also a hardtail with a 140mm trail fork on it (Pike). Wild enduro up front - if you stick a pair of mezcals or something like that on it should speed things up. Wheels might make it feel lighter but isn’t going to make s massive difference to overall times I reckon.</p>
I have two wheelsets for the same bike. Makes 600g difference weighed…. But I think I the biggest difference is the tyres. I ride the bike for both styles so swapping tyres isn’t really practical.
I'd you're aiming to make it lighter and make it feel easier to pedal then yeah, lighter wheels and tyres will make a huge difference. I went from a 2300g wheelset to 1700g on my hardtail and the difference was immediately noticeable. Lighter tyres got that close to 1kg in weight shaved off.
Might be worth weighing what you've already got though just to make sure you're actually getting lighter wheels. Also, from experience, Hunts can be a bit heavier than they state.
Smaller chainring might help to? I dropped down from 32t to a 30t oval and found that helped on longer (all day) rides. It does hurt your top end speed on the flat though so I guess it depends what and where you're riding.
Saving 600 grams in wheels on a bike that weighs 14kg? is not going to turn it into an XC bike. Agree with others, tyres are the most important thing to change if you want t to feel more XC like on XC terrain but you will always be hampered by non optimal geometry, too big a fork etc,.
Just for reference, yesterday's Pinkbike article weighed Nino Schurters bike in at 22.6lbs / 10.25kg! That's including:power meter, dropper, 120mm travel F&R and many batteries for all the electronics. He wasn't even using the lightest wheels available to him. I'm guessing 2.4" tyres too for yesterday's course. Pretty impressive weight that'll be pretty costly to mimic.
Can you drop the stem and/or try some lower rise bars? My Solaris feels* like it has considerably less ‘xc vim’ with the stem at the top of the steerer and riser bars (to give room for a toddler seat). Going from a 120 to 140 fork (for the same reason, old fork with a long enough steerer for the seat) made less difference I think and most of that was just the change in bar height.
*I couldn’t tell you how much measureable difference this makes to speed.
Fast rear tyre and try dropping the bars would be my first things to try before spending loads of money. As above, mezcal? Hunt wheelsets IIRC can look good on weight because the hubs are light, not necessarily the rims.
I run 2 wheelsets on my soul. One for xc / local bridleways (2.3 rock razor and 2.3 Vigilante) and one for the Peaks or chunkier stuff (2.6 Bontrager SE4 and a 2.6 Magic Mary up front). The tyres make a huge difference to how the bike feels - the rockrazor on the rear at 25+psi makes it feel so much faster.
As others say it's the tyres that'll make the most difference.
If you run two wheelsets then you could go for something really fast on the XC set.
I've had Maxxis Pace before (29 x 2.1) and they were lightnig fast and relatively tough. Other options are things like Schwalbe Thunder Burt or 2.25" G-One Allround, Maxxis Aspen, Vittoria Terreno XC or Mezcal, Teravail Sparwood.
If you were only going to run one set of wheels, you may find those are too far towards the XC end of the spectrum. But that is prob the only way you'll get the bike to feel substantially faster without spending loads.
Wheels and tyres will always make the biggest difference to how light and fast a bike rolls and rides. However a heavy slack frame can only be 'lightened' so much. It'd probably be cost comparable to buy a second hand xc race bike and keep your current bike setup for winter/technical off-road.
However, if I was you, I'd buy a pair of decent 2.25"/2.35" tubeless xc tyres for the summer. I'd not bother with the wheels as that's an expensive upgrade.
Faster rolling tyres are the first thing to do and cheaper than most other options.
Having a lighter set of wheels is also a good idea if you can afford it. Chris Porter has been saying for years that instead of 2 bikes most people would be better served with one bigger bike and have a lighter/faster set of wheels/tyres for XC days. And having two wheel sets means you don’t have to faff with tyre swaps, tubeless goop and inserts every time you want to go for an XC ride (and vice versa).
That’s my plan for my 130mm burly hardtail anyway. As soon as I can afford a lighter wheel set I’ll get one and run fast rolling tyres.
The Hunt XC wheels and fast rolling rubber will make a massive difference and then keep the existing wheels for days when you want to do harder stuff.
If you trade it in for an XC bike you’re going to miss out on the fun the big bike brings you the rest of the time.
Do lighter wheels measurably make a bike faster or just make it feel faster? Yes, they take more energy to spin up to speed but you only lose that energy when you brake - the rest of the time the heavier wheel helps keep the bike rolling. Lighter is faster uphill but the differences are v small compared to making the person lighter (without losing power).
More efficient tyres (which are often lighter) - yes, they definitely make bikes faster because of reduced hysteresis loss from the tread and casing (bigger the knobs, stiffer the casing and softer the compound, the greater the losses).
To my mind by far the biggest difference will be due to lighter and faster rolling tyres rather than lighter wheels
The reason I've ran two wheelsets on bikes in the past is so I don't have to change my tyres twice a week (not a chance), and not because I expect the lighter wheels to make that much difference
If it was me, and I know that it isn't - but if it was - I'd be swapping the dropper post for a ThudBuster.
Not just to increase comfort and reduce fatigue on XC rides, but to improve pedalling efficiency over bumpy stuff (it's much easier to keep up a regular, easy cadence when you're not being bumped and jolted up your arse on every other stroke).
In my head, that will make a much bigger improvement to overall efficiency than shaving a few grammes off wheels or whatever.
Finding ways to make the rider more efficient will always give greater results than the relatively miniscule improvements to bicycle efficiency that you may (or may not) be able to effect.
And it depends on your flavour of 'XC' but for round my way, Mezcal seems to be the perfect XC tyre.
Before I got a gravel bike did the King Alfreds Way on my 140mm HT with Conti Race king tyres, happily kept up with mate on his gravel bike on everything except long road climbs. On strava on one local section of tbe fosse way this set up is no slower than the titanium gravel bike. So like others have said, defo tyres first. If you want to go more “aero” then slightly longer stem, only issue you’re left with is wheel lift when steep climbing (lean forward 😂)
As said, definitely swap the tyres first. If you use tubeless and regularly want to swap tyres then I’d suggest getting a second pair of wheels as swapping tubeless all the time is a ball-ache. And if you’re getting new wheels for your light tyres then you might as well get lighter wheels rather than heavy ones.
At least that’s my theory anyway.
I've put some dtswiss ex1700 wheels and maxxis ardent race tyres on my ragley bigwig and it's made a massive difference to the rolling speed and response. It still weighs 32lb though!
I bought it for a steel winter hardtail, but fancied some xc over the summer. It rolls really well now, and feels nice compared to my 37lb Mega with DD tyres on, but I still wouldn't class it as an xc bike. Just a bit more fun.
Do lighter wheels measurably make a bike faster or just make it feel faster?
Assuming the loss of weight is on the rim and not the hub then they can feel faster, feel lighter to turn etc,. but dropping 500g on wheels won't make you any faster than dropping 500g on the frame (especially as the 500g won't be all on the rims). And that 500g will make very little difference in any timings over any distance.
Wheels and tyres make a difference for sure but, when you're starting with a heavy (for xc) rest of the bike, it will never feel as sprightly as a lighter bike.
I was reminded of this when I bought a Whippet frame and forks. When compared to my regular HT (Carbon Chameleon) it felt a lot zippier and nimble - despite the Chameleon having carbon wheels and not too heavy tyres.
When I tried lighter still wheels and Racing Ralph + Ray, it was probably 10% faster on fireroads and tame woods but, when the going was heavy and more technical I got bounced everywhere and it felt decidedly old school light weight.
Not necessarily a bad thing if chasing that sort of ride but I also found that on harsher trails, the chameleon was faster as it steam rollered a lot of the skips.
Depends what you want ultimately but light weight isn't always the be all.
You've got a few options really. If all you want to do is XC-type riding, just change the tyres to some sort of race XC-type thing and see if that's enough bearing in mind that the rest of your bike isn't particularly racy and throwing really light wheels at it, is only going to have a limited impact.
If you want to retain some sort of performance in gnarlier terrain you can either stick a Rock Razor on the back and something grippier up front - bear in mind that in some scenarios, the front is going to be doing the heavy grip lifting on its own - or go for, ahem, a pair of 'down country' tyres that supposedly hit the sweet-spot between grip and rolling resistance, eg: the latest Maxxis Forekasters or whatever the Vittoria tyre is that people rave about.
Or, if money's no object and you want both worlds, buy some lightweight XC wheels and stick lightweight XC tyres on them, just swap wheels when needed. The downside to this is that it'll be expensive and you'll still have a compromised bike, because it's an aggro trail hardtail (or whatever you want to call it) rather than a race XC one. At which point you're getting into the territory where you might as well start looking at buying a lighter, faster bike additional for easier terrain.
Personally I'd buy a Rock Razor and see how that feels. They're great tyres, very fast rolling, but also surprisingly grippy and it'll be considerably cheaper than any of the other options.
but dropping 500g on wheels won’t make you any faster than dropping 500g on the frame
Pedantically, lighter rims will take less energy to spin up to speed so losing 500g of rotating mass will have more benefit than just 500g from the frame. However, in the real world, losing big draggy tyres will make a massive difference, lighter rims only a tiny difference. Also, the weight of the wheels won't make any difference when you're maintaining constant speed on the flat - that's purely down to rolling resistance from the tyres and aero drag.
On top of that, losing 2kg from your gut will make more difference than 2kg from the bike, so no point spending big money on a lightweight bike if you're carrying a spare tyre round your waist.
Anyone mentioned tyres yet?
Are you clipping in? I found really stiff soled SPD shoes made bikes feel more efficient as my shoes weren’t folding round the pedal, felt more direct, as the seemed to be less loss.
yes someone mentioned racing ralphs
I had a set of stans alpines with racing ralphs, they made a world of difference to my rides, from heavy wheels and chunky heavy tyres. and lets face it, most riding that most people do is pretty tame.
Pedantically, lighter rims will take less energy to spin up to speed so losing 500g of rotating mass will have more benefit than just 500g from the frame
It is negligible though and when people save 500g on wheels it is not very often all on the rims is it. Saving 200g on the hubs will make zero difference. And while you can feel it on the rims through steering and 'snap' it actually makes no real measurable distance over an hour.
Just for reference, yesterday’s Pinkbike article weighed Nino Schurters bike in at 22.6lbs / 10.25kg! That’s including:power meter, dropper, 120mm travel F&R and many batteries for all the electronics. He wasn’t even using the lightest wheels available to him. I’m guessing 2.4″ tyres too for yesterday’s course. Pretty impressive weight that’ll be pretty costly to mimic.
Like £15k kind of expensive with Pro only issue tyres and he's not exactly a tall chap so it'll be a medium at most.
Best way to make it more XC is flog it and buy an XC orientated bike, its a bit like trying to make a big ass pick-up feel light and nimble like a hot hatch, it ain't gonna happen.
FWIW I have a Scott Scale 910 that's just over 10kg inc dropper, it has decent'ish kit on it including a set of Silt XC Alloy wheels, but nothing top end whatsoever. My XC FS is 11kg on the nose inc. (brand X)dropper with XTR 12 speed, some nice bars but not exactly light wheels in the shape of DT Swiss XM1700 spline 25's at 1680g's, both are a size large and both bikes run Conti CrossKing ProTection TR up front and RaceKing of the same ilk out back, so fast and light tyres, on what are pretty light and fast (bar the pilot) bikes.