I have an alu Specialized Stumpy Evo and am thinking of trying to lighten it a little in the future.
It has stock parts as below.
Would replacement wheels be a good start? Carbon even?
Or what about changing the cassette to GX from NX? (Does this mean needing a different hub also?)
Or just start with different tyres for UK rides and keep burlier tyres for occasional Morzine type trips?
The aim is to be noticeably more nimble uphill. I should start with myself in that respect, but hey 😜
Cheers
Frame // M5 Aluminium, 150mm
Shock // Fox Float X Performance Rx Trail Tune, 210x55mm
Fork // Fox Float 36 Rhythm, GRIP, 160mm, 44mm offset
Wheels // Specialized Alloy 29
Front Tyre // Specialized Butcher Grid Trail, Gripton T9, 29×2.3
Rear Tyre // Specialized Eliminator Grid Trail, Gripton T7, 29×2.3
Chainset // SRAM NX Eagle, 170mm, 30T
Drivetrain // SRAM NX Eagle
Brakes // SRAM Code R, 200/200mm rotors
NX is a chunky groupset. I mean, it's perfectly functional (I've got it on a Specialized Chisel HT) but it's a hefty thing. The problem is that to save significant amounts of weight, you're looking at very significantly more £££.
Personally with a groupset, I'd leave the old one until it's worn, then upgrade. There's not a lot of point in taking off perfectly decent kit with some life left in it, run it into the ground over winter. However if anywhere has a quality 1x groupset in a Black Friday sale, be worth snapping it up ready for an upgrade!
Wheels are always a good place to start. Work from the outside inwards... tyres, rims, hubs/cassette.
I'd keep it as it is through the winter and fit the lighter parts in spring.
If you want to climb faster, starve yourself and lose weight first. Then look at your tyres, especially the rear one. The weight savings from a fancy wheelset won't make a huge difference to your climbing times.
Biggest upgrade I found to my MTB was commuting in the week.
Most noticeable upgrades have been fork services. They always feel fine, I service them and the feel.absolutely amazing after.
I've never noticed a fancier cassette making a difference.
On my gravel bike going from alloy MTB wheels with average hubs to hope pro 2 and eBay carbon rims felt amazing. One was a total pain to get to stay up tubeless.
On my MTB I bought some novatack/ cabin rims from king bike on eBay. They were super. The rear hub needed the odd rebuild, the free hub needed replaced and I eventually killed the rear cabin rim on a pointy rock strike with some poor line choice after 3000+ very hard miles.
So if that were my bike and I had £1000 to spend burning a hole in my pocket I would
Not worry about the weight. Can you lose 5kg of you? You aren't going to lose that off a decent bike like that. Never weigh it ever, or spread sheet weights. That way lies you wife wandering into that garage and catching you weighing your shoes.
Keep the tires ( I run butcher trail as a trail tire and love them.)
Get a pair of grid gravity for morzine. I have hillbilly front and butcher rear.
Service the fork and shock.
New eBay carbon wheels because shiny
Replace things when the wear out with fancier things.
Keep £500 or whatever you have left put it in premium bonds until something wears out or brakes.
For cheaper weight savings, I'd look at stuff like...
Latex/TPU tubes
Carbon seatpost
Carbon bars
Saddle
Potentially, depending on supplied spec, they could drop weight by ~1Kg.
You might be able to get a pair of similar spec tyres that are lighter.
I don't you'll not save much with tyres, Grid Trail isn't an overly heavy carcass and the Eliminator is pretty fast rolling.
n0b0dy0ftheg0at I doubt TPU tubes and carbon seat post are a way to save weight on a Stumpy, I'd assume tubeless and dropper post are in use.
None of what you have fitted is really lightweight but you'd have to spend a lot of money across the board to make a noticeable improvement in the weight. If you want to do it, it'll be a case of keeping an eye out for something on offer as and when you can afford/it wears out. I've had carbon rims before but dont really rate them, instead I went with the lightest alu rims I could get away with for my weight plus the 240s over the 350 dt swiss hubs.
Wheels saved a massive chunk of weight from my Stumpjumper (non-evo). Switching to Ground Controls over the standard Butcher/Purgatory tyres also made a big difference - but they might not be enough tyre for an evo.
Decent wheels might not save much weight but better engagement is a mind trick that makes it feel like they do. I put some decent at Swiss on a bike a few years back and despite a little weight saving, the difference over the nova tech or wtb before was phenomenal
Thanks everyone, some sensible suggestions for me to think about. Cheers!
Tyres make a difference, the rest are meh! I’d bet you could change the cassette and wheels and if you kept the same tyres you’d hardly notice.
But if you want a good climbing bike, don’t start with a Stumpjumper Evo, it’s not what it’s designed for.
bet you could change the cassette and wheels and if you kept the same tyres you’d hardly notice.
I saved 800g on the stock wheels/cassette on my not-evo. *Massive* difference.
Wheels, don't waste money on a cassette, kill it, although if you got new wheels you'd want to decide on a freehub. or buy two... as the NX is HG and everything else is XD, but then GX cassettes are stupid stupid money.... i personally would chuck an SLX on a new set of wheels...
don't waste money on a cassette
Before 1x, I'd have agreed with you, but with the massive cassettes now, you save like, 200g. I mean, definitely look at other things first, but there's a big chunk of weight to be had off a low/mid-range cassette.
For a Stumpy I wouldn't worry too much about saving grammes. From personal experience, XC / Downcountry bikes used to hammer out the miles benefit from lightening the build. Trail bikes, not so much, especially if you're only riding at weekends.
I personally wouldn’t change a cassette for weight; I have a few cassettes that are half the weight of my NX etc that I also have knocking around and I honestly can’t tell the difference between them when swapping a like for like wheel and tyre combo.
I can’t really comment on wheels and tyres as they don’t last with me so I tend to go heavier rather than lighter, but I’ve also never spent £££ on carbon rims! There is one exception, I “think” tacky chans feel a bit more sprightly for me and they perform well too… but who knows?!? 🙂
NX is really heavy cassette. I also found it didn’t last half the distance of the GX that replaced it. Wouldn’t do it as a single item swap but if you are changing wheels, I’d go XD driver and cassette.
When I swapped the stock wheels on my Levo SL to carbon reserves I also noticed a difference. As a heavier rider, I can go much lighter with carbon than alloy, without compromising on stiffness or strength.
Fork upgrade was a sizeable lump off the weight for me.
Cheap weight savings...
Removed the dropper (left the cable in as it's a major faff) as most of my riding is faster open downs)
Added bottle cages and a small saddle bag i.e lose the chunky rucksack with 3 litres of water and the non essential spares/manky emergency bars. I only wear a bag now if I be really need to take extra layers...and often I'll take a bike packing style bag if that's the case.
Tyres, especially the rear are a very easy place to save a chunk of weight. Swapped the Hans Dampf of the back of mine for a Nobby Nic in the harder, lighter compound and it made a huge difference to rolling resistance and which made the bike feel more nibble. This was fine for the majority of my rides but after a day at BPW I found a fatal split in the tyre and a dent in the rim. Pretty sure the Dampf would have withstood that so if you're riding reasonably hard you need to decide if a bit of weight off is worth the increased chance of failure.
Same with wheels really as I have some pretty light DT Swiss wheels on my XC bike with XC tyres which are ace for their intended use but are noticeable worse than my big wheels the things get naughty. Saying that, I imagine if you have deep pockets you could save weight with out compromising performance but imagine you'd be in to the £1000's before it makes much difference?
I’d strip down and weigh the wheels so at least you know how much you’re going to save before spending money, but you can’t go too far wrong with a decent wheelset really (and it is somewhere you can usually save a few 100s of g). A spare set of wheels is a useful thing to own as well - could run different tyres on them for different riding to make use of both.
my quick google said there’s only 100g between an nx and xx cassette. Not a lot for the expense.
my quick google said there’s only 100g between an nx and xx cassette. Not a lot for the expense.
Not sure where you got those figures but I saw actual weighed values of 612g for NX, 453g for GX and 373g for XO and very similar for XX1. I've never gone above GX because of cost, but with the increased durability over NX, the extra expense is worth it for me.
I was just gonna say, you'll lose about 100g off the cassette with a reasonably priced replacement (e.g. Suntour).
But assuming the wheels are a bit heavier than average (likely on an NX bike), perhaps swap to some DT alu rimmed wheels with microspline hub and get an SLX cassette?
From that list, wheels, tyres first.
Cassette is consumable, so when you next come to replace it, get a slightly more expensive (compatible) one. As Stanley said above, start from the outside in on the wheels.
Beyond that it gets tough - do you *really* want to replace your entire drivetrain, when you think of the headache/ cost involved? Or even the brakes, if they work well? I'd be looking maybe at handlebar, stem, seatpost, but they're more marginal gains.
Those tyres are about right for the riding that bike is intended for though.
Lighter ones would be a compromise, unless OP's riding was pretty mellow.
Consider a Garbaruk cassette- even lighter, and can be had for around £200. As others have said, it needs an XD driver..
DrP
I'd keep the cash in my pocket and upgrade the wheels and cassette at the same time when I can afford it.
The reasoning being unless you spot a bargain then a new freehub on either the current wheels or a new set is likely to be a significant chunk of the budget.
Weight on the rear axle makes a surprisingly big difference to how a bike feels while climbing. The front tends to just pop over things but the rear hangs up on everything. And there's a definite tipping point between Deore/NX and XT/GX where the momentum of the cassette is enough that it continues to spin momentarily when you stop pedalling abruptly as it's overcoming the spring/clutch in the mech which makes it feel like a lower POE if you have to ratchet the pedals to get up a step.
I'm not anti-carbon rims, but they make more sense on a road bike where 60mm deep rims are now normal. Off road, the biggest benefit comes with the widest rims, so it kinda depends whether you can or want to also run ~2.6" tyres otherwise the weight savings can be very marginal for a large cost increase.
I'd be looking maybe at handlebar, stem, seatpost, but they're more marginal gains.
The only way to know for sure is to take them off and weigh them. Some OEM stuff is really unbelievably heavy.
And marginal gains all add up, that's the point.
Knock 50g off the pedals (more thinner, more plastic), bars, 25g off the stem, fit some ESI grips instead of lock-ons (-100g), 2x spare TPU tubes instead of butyl (-150g each), empty out the unnecessary spares from the saddle bag (CO2, electric pump, brake pads?), more minimalist bottle cage (-75g?). Together that could be 750g and probably cheaper than even some fairly basic to mid wheels!
unless OP's riding was pretty mellow.
Ha, not on that bike 😄
Thanks again everyone for the suggestions!
Consider a Garbaruk cassette- even lighter, and can be had for around £200. As others have said, it needs an XD driver..
DrP
Or HG which I have on a couple of bikes, they’ve lasted really well too! 🙂
Wheels would be the normal starting point. Th e specialised traverse that my stumpy came with are pretty light anyway so it would be very speedy to save much