[Closed] My BFe needs to go on a diet and needs help to know where to focus its efforts

1x10 with a thick/thin and a clutch mech.

Lots of weight in your hubs. Consider a Hope build.

Then you need to go weenie - carbon bars?

31.5 lbs, really isn't *that* bad, the internet tells us about bikes that weigh less, but the internet is full of shit.

the rear hub weighs around 450 grams, you could save a wopping 140grams if you bought a hope pro2, and had the rear wheel rebuilt (cost = £190).

those lovely handlebars weigh around 340grams (i've got them), you could save 150 grams with some thompson carbon jobbies, but they're a smidge narrower (730mm)

your frame is a little at odds with the kit. the frame is one of the strongest things ever made anywhere in the universe, but you've got spindly xc rims and tyres on it.

overall, you're looking at around £1/gram saved. You want to save 3lbs = 1500g, which will cost you at least £1000.

sorry.

what would i do? - bury my scales at the back of the cupboard, watch blade-runner on iplayer, get up early, and go for an awesome ride with some mates. 🙂

that bash-guard weighs 160grams, do you really need to cart that around?

You'll feel it more in the wheels than anywhere else. That'd be my starting point. Wouldn't bother chaing any of the bits you've listed, it's all good stuff. It is a BFe afterall.

I suspect your cassette is a bit heavy, what saddle are you using, grips? Go for some ESI grips - better than lock ons.

What stem? What pedals? What brakes? What shifters?

Wheels would be the best place if you're bothered about weight. Get some Superstar Switch hubs on Stans or Pacenti Rims to drop a big amoutn of weight.

Get fitter and stronger and man up.

Ditch the seat post
New wheels
Have a big dump pre-ride.

Is shedding about 1kg in weight really going to enhance your riding 🙂

Remembers first mountain, sorry all terrain bike being rigid and closer to 40lbs on canti brakes with chrome rims. only had 15 gears as well, and 26" wheels.

🙂

Mine weighs 27.4 lbs

Frame: Cotic BFe - Medium
Forks: Rockshox Revelation 150mm RLT
Wheels: Hope Pro2 on Mavic EN521s, DT Swiss spokes, Larsen TT tyres
Groupset: XT 2x10
Bars, Stem, Seatpost: Easton Haven
Saddle: Charge Spoon
Grips: Lizard Skin Lock-ons
BB/Headset: Hope
Pedals: Shimano M520

New wheels might be a good start, I'll weigh them tomorrow and see what they are. The Haven stuff is fantastic quality and pretty light. I should have bought a Soul too but got bored saving up the extra £200 and bought the BFe when I had £300!!

2013 BFe small sub 28 pounds.

Fox float 140
Hope pro 2 with ZTR FLow Ex and Hans Dampf tyres
Hope X2 brakes
Hope 50mm stem, Nukeproof bars and ODI lock on grips
SlX shifters 2*9 and Hope Bash
Nukeproof seatpost and Charge Scoop perch
Hope BB
DMR Vault pedals

XS BFe. Smidge under 29lb with a pretty tough build.

Marzocchi 44s
Flow on Superstar Switch
Specialized Purgatory/The Captain (running tubeless)
1x9 (Hope SS BB/Raceface Ride cranks & bash/Superstar Nano pedals/Blackspire 34T/Superstar Plasma guide/X9 mech, cassette & gripshift)
Reverb & Spoon
XT brakes with 203/180 discs
Ragley Stubbings stem with Raceface Respond 740 bars and ODI lock-ons

Wheels, tyres and drivetrain are your key areas to look at I reckon.

ahwiles - Member
the frame is one of the strongest things ever made anywhere in the universe

[i]Cheap wheels - Deore hubs on 717 rims
Normal tubes
2.4 Conti Mountain King Protections - 650g apparently[/i]

This.

Right then
Tyres...more like 800-850g, you'll need to go to 2.2 to get anything like those weights (and even then 2.2 contis are hovering around 700g)

Tubes are 200g each. Tubeless?

Wheels and hubs: With flow or arch on Hope you could maybe save another 300g-400g over your shimano and mavic.

thing is, that lot will cost you £400...for about a kilo, maybe...BUt it'll be rotating weight you'll be saving, so it'll feel lighter.

I have no idea what nine weighs. It's not light. Enjoy hammering around on it too much to care.

Wot he said ^^ Tubeless would save up to 400g, and if budget's an issue Superstar are still doing flows on their Switch hubs for £200, or their Pacenti TL rims on Switch for £160. They quote their pacenti AM rimmed wheels as 1770g, so you get a pretty good saving there.

Make a list of everything on the bike in a spreadsheet and add the weights and prices to it, swap in and out based on what you can afford.

717 rims are already about as light as you'd want to go on a BFe. They are certainly quite a bit lighter than the 521s Broistolpablo is running. Your spokes probably aren't double butted if the wheels were budget so there would be some benefit from a good quality pair of wheels but not as much as you might think. Hubs being heavy are neither here nor there really as it's the rotating weight at the outside edge that you really feel.

Spesh Purgatory tyres weigh in around 650-700g. Going tubeless with these would save you around 175g per wheel which would be very noticeable. Bear in mind the purgatory isn't the most robust carcass in the world so if you're riding anywhere rocky you might rip them.

Ahhhhhh, I've been down this road recently...

nobby nics 2.25 evo ss are pretty light @ 580g, but I'm getting hacked off with tearing them on rocks 🙁

for trail centre enduros I think I'll go back to maxx pro DHF 60a @ 780g and out back a folding crossmark @ 640g or a high roller @ 690g.

Saddle - lost quite a bit there.
switched from 2x9 with a bash to 1x9, could lose a bit more when I get through my last few cassettes and go 1x10 with a shadow+ Zee mech.
picked up some secondhand DT Swiss 1750 and a DT Swiss 10x135 axel - surprisingly light!
(thanks fella - you know who you are)
Ti spring saved a lb, I could go airshock and lose another lb, but it would kill the ride a bit...

180mm ally full sus - 31lb with pedals.

next step: toobless

Personally I think your scales are pessimistic - the current BFe is only 0.7 lb heavier than the current Soul and nothing on your built is seriously heavy. Ignoring the alleged weight I'd go tubeless with wider rims - there's so much more grip and smoothness to be had without losing speed. On rims that skinny with tyres that big and tubes you must be running much higher pressures than ideal.

Usually I'd say don't try and make a bfe light, and most of what you have on it makes sense, but the wheels and tyres don't. The wheels for weight and narrowness, the tyres for shitness.

If you want to save weight, you need to know what everything weighs. Scales, spreadsheet, nerdgasm. Go!

Unless your hubs are made from solid lead, I really can't see where the weight is there.

Tell us what your budget is for improvements anyway, and where you do your riding.

Also, 2.4 MKs on those rims must give an awful round tyre profile, do they feel a bit squirmy when you're riding would you say?

Deore hubs are actually made from solidified lard, fused with fatassium. They really are that heavy.
Pick up some Stans on Pro2's. If budgets an issue pick up a cheap set & junk the rims & build the hubs onto your 717's. Pro2's are a doddle to get back to newness.

** I ran those rims when I was crowned worlds fattest man, & had no issues maintaining a radness of gnar when hucking some serious drops. (Ok, slight exaggeration, but the rims were fine running a 2.2 tyre). And I ran them tubeless ok. Big plus is that those hubs are the same dims as the old XT756 & Pro2's build on with the same spokes... 😉

Rule 5 applies. Yes I know it's for roadies but unless you are planning on racing xc then it really should be a case of just ride it. I have no idea what my 456 weighs but I know the topeak rack adds over a kilo and I can't tell whether it is fitted or not when actually riding (except I have a drier back side in winter.

Kinda reinforcing what a few others have said so far... The wheels and tyres would be my main port of call, though more for something better suited to the bike than out and out weight loss. Current wheels will be over 2kg unless built with super light spokes, a change to something like the Superstar hubs on Pacenti TL28's will save 250g of weight, give you a wider more stable rim, and allow for easier tubeless setup. Pair these with a Specialized Purgatory Control 2.3" on the front, and a Ground Control 2.3" on the back (both tubeless) and you'll lose a bit of weight, and have a much more grippy set of treads that still roll really well, and you'll also have all the benefits of tubeless! Might save you 1lb in weight (probably not even that) but importantly the bike will be a lot nicer to ride.

What brakes? Saddle? Groupset? There's always a light option, just depends how much you wanna spend!

IMO though, anything round 30lb mark is ok for a BFe as they're designed to be abused. No point having super light XC kit on one!

Foam grips will save 50 - 100g for less than a tenner.

Should be able to get some Superstar wheels around £200 based on Stans tims which would save a pound.

The Reverb isn't really a fair thing to compare/include in the weight - there's at least an instant half pound in that over a normal seatpost.

The engine, bound to be a pound or two there 🙂

Just ride it and enjoy, or get a Stanton...

2013 BFe small, 28lb on the nose. Frame is 5lb with hope headset cups and top bearing.

Slant 34mm forks
Flow EX pro2
Reverb
Slx brakes 180/203
2x9 xt rear mech, slx front mech
xt 11-32 cassette
Slx m665 cranks
Superstar nano pedals
Xt/slx shifters
Fat bar lite 740
Spoon saddle
Xr4 tyres
Bbg bash

2.4 Conti Mountain King Protections - 650g apparently

This.

Right then
Tyres...more like 800-850g, you'll need to go to 2.2 to get anything like those weights (and even then 2.2 contis are hovering around 700g)

nickc - I have weighed all 3 of the MK2 protection 2.4's in my possession, because I'm sad like that. They're all 650 grams more or less. if anything I'd at least swap the front one out for something else even if it's heavier. Don't like the MK2 on the front at all.

Swapping those out for anything lighter would be a bad idea imo.

If it's the original Shimano bash, it weighs about the same as a medium sized fridge freezer..
I swapped mine for a Straitline alu bash, and we now use the Shimano one as an emergency spare wheel on our Vauxhall Zafira..

That should get your overall weight down to about 21.5lbs 😉

1) tubeless isn't a weight-saver: a tube only weighs 200grams, you'll need at least 100grams of sealant, if you do it 'ghetto' you'll be adding a 100g rim-strip, if you do it properly you'll be using heavier tyres/rims - and 100g of sealant.

2) Scamper's scales sound great - use his/hers for weighing your bike!

3) proceed cautiously if you're thinking abou using superstar wheels...

Nothing wrong with both sets of scales I've used or do you want my component weights too off another set to treble check? 8) Lightweight inners, foam grips and chain save a surprising amount of weight too.

Mine's a Soul rather than a BFe, but to give you some idea of how to get it down to under 21lb... 😆

Part Item Weight(g)

Frame Cotic Soul Mk2, Medium 1,995
Fork Exotic Carbon rigid (9mm) 770
Headset Hope threadless 90
Stem Thomson X4 90mm, 10deg 169
Bar Easton EC70 riser 31.8 155
Grips ODI Lockon Yeti 108
ShiftersN/a 0
F Mech N/a 0
R Mech On One Doofer 50
Chain SRAM PC7X 340
BB Hope external BB steel 109
Cranks XT M780 175mm 630
Cog DX 18T 30
C'ring Hope Single DH ring 50
Pedals M540 SPD 353
Brake XT M785 Disc levers 266
Brake XT M785 Disc callipers 332
Rotors Hope Floating 203/160mm 300
Hub F Hope Pro 2 Evo (9mm) 185
Hub R Hope Pro 2 (9mm) 295
Rims DT Swiss XR400 Disc 32H 800
Spokes DT Swiss black 400
Tubes Conti Presta 26" 300
Tyres Conti X King Pro 2.2 1,140
Skewers Hope QR (F&R) 100
Clmap Hope QR 30.0 52
S'post Thomson Elite Layback 27.2 228
Saddle Fizik Gobi XM K:ium 230

Total weight: 9.477kg or 20.89lb

Adding Fox 32 RLC QR15s makes the bike appox 22lbs.

Adding a predominately XTR drivetrain makes it approx 24lbs.

Sooooo. This is all great stuff. I actually spent more time weighing my bike by standing on the bathroom scales with and without the bike. Apparently my BFe isn't quite as BFe as I thought, but it's still 30.6 lbs and a fair bit more than my similarity specced, 140mm alu HT.

So, a better question would be; which wheels for £200-£300? I'd like wider rims than the 717's I'm currently running. I'd really prefer to stay with tubes - I'm reluctant to step out of the boat on that one. Ideally I'd prefer not to have the incessant clicking sound of Hopes, but maybe I'd learn to love the sound. I'd certainly love to have blue or red hubs and look flash.

Would boring, black XT hubs on 521 rims save much weight over Deore/717's?

Thanks again for all your input.

For a BFE i'd be getting Stans Arch EX on Hope

Flow EX on Hope, no question. I made the mistake of getting Arch Ex's and suffered from tyre squirm. Flow Ex's sorted it, well worth the very slight weight penalty.

Would boring, black XT hubs on 521 rims save much weight over Deore/717's?

XT hubs are about 50g lighter per pair than Deore's

521 rims are about 150 each heavier than 717's

You'd gain about 250g in weight all else being equal, not lose it!

Why so reluctant on tubeless?

And again, you've still not stated half of the bike build! You could have a ridiculously heavy saddle for instance you've not told us about.

Oh, and buy wider rims anyway, even if they are a bit heavier... The increase in tyre profile and grip is well worth it, as are some grippiest treads!

Would boring, black XT hubs on 521 rims save much weight over Deore/717's?

They'd be heavier I reckon.

i'd be getting Stans Arch EX on Hope

I'd go with this, Hope hubs don't click when you're pedaling!

I would consider myself a Weightweenie however...

current weight is about 31.5lbs, and I'd really like to aim for 28-29

What do you hope to expect losing 2.5-3.5 pounds from a 30+lb bike? It seems like a minimal gain for what will be a pretty hefty cost as others have already said. The best thing to do is to use everything you have then replace it with the best weight to performance to value ratio component that fits your riding and budget when the original parts die.

Oh, and never ever trust the bathroom scales... 😉

The other stuff:

XT brakes
180mm rotor on rear, 200mm rotor on front
Charge Spoon saddle
Deore bottom bracket

The reason I'm asking about wheels is that the wheels I'm currently using were just something lying around to get me up and running. I fancy a better wheelset, but I'm not looking to break the bank.

Sounds like Stan's something or others in Pro 2's are the job. Off to price them now. Then I need to figure what to sell so I can afford them!

John my Flows on Hope survived the Alps and are now on the Slackline - definately worth it.