How much quicker? According to the 'weight off you/the bike is the same' it should be 8.8% faster (I think...) on the lighter bike, which is not unsubstantial at all!
Was thinking of the National XC course at Inners last year, had been up having a bit of fun on the big bike for the week before and did a couple of timed runs on the course while I was there. If I remember right there was 6-7minutes a lap in it compared to my race times on the light bike, surprised by how much of a difference there was, but the downhill bits were more fun on big bike.
The comment about the tyres was just me trying to be funny. Be interesting if someone has two bikes which are genuinely identical other than weight (is that even possible? Maybe use one bike and fill the seat-tube with lead shot for the second timed run, although even that would change the centre of gravity) With my two there's all sorts of differences, geometry being the big one but also coil/air, single-pivot/linkage, etc, etc.
The anti weight weenie lobby are (usually) fat knackers carrying a bag loaded up with enough spares and pies to run a pie and spares stall, who could ride a carbon unicycle with a semi slick and still be slow biffers with all of the acceleration of one of those dogs with a lamp shade on its head and its arse on one of those little trolleys.
oh...
😀
I prefer to ride a reliable and relatively light bike in that order. For general trail riding I really don't worry too much about weight - for enduro's and 24 hour racing I take as much weight off as possible on the bike and on me. Well, as for me I might give merlot up the night before and that's about it to be honest. I ended up shouldering the bike for over a mile every night lap last year soloing at SITS and can guarantee that weight matters then. Really. The rest is just personal preference.
Last year I replaced my old 35lb Enduro with a new 28lb Enduro.
I then proceeded to lose 28lbs off me.
I noticed the benefit of losing 7lb from the bike more than the 28lbs from me.
