So, as it was my birthday this week, I thought it about time I changed my drive train. I have a couple of new Sram 950 cassettes in the shed, but I thought I'd try & lose some weight, a 980 duly purchased from CRC.
One thing led to another & I have replaced my Middleburn RS7's & Ti BB with the 'irresistible' offer of FSA duel & ceramic BB from on-one, then Merlin are still doing a good price on Sram X0 shifters & mech, so I bought those as well.
The thing is 1/2lb in weight saving has cost £400, fair enough, it needed doing anyway, but if I had to pay retail it would of been near £1000. The really bad thing is my scales still say the bike weighs over 23lbs, just how do you get to a 20lb hardtail?, must cost £5k plus at todays prices 🙁
20lb hardtail? What are your wheels/tyres/stem/post/pedals?
All that weight loss must be pretty academic after the yard of ale you had 🙂
I should post a pic, maybe tomorrow now though.
Wheels are hope XC with Ti hub, 717's & butted spokes, tyres are Shwalbe fast fred light (350g). Stem is FSA 115, bars are salsa carbon flat with specialized grips, forks are reba WC, seat & saddle are SDG Fomula SX & carbon post, litespeed clamp.
I can't think of much kit that weighs less than the above, so just how do people get to 18lbs, let alone 20? 🙁
Ian, I had to undo the camelback by 2" just to wobble home 🙂
I did have to order a coffee at the third pub though 😉
The thing is 1/2lb in weight saving has cost £400
FFS!
CA, was that a dig at the grammar?
BTW the brakes are Fomula SL's & the frame is a tripple butted Ti Pipedream, peddles are eggbeater Sl's.
🙂
No, just silly money, not a dig, I can just thing of a load of better things to spend £400 on personally. Just don't see the point in super light.
CA, but a new chain, rings & jockey wheels would of cost a fair chunk, so that needs to come off the total, but yes, silly money really, but then needs V's want is priceless 😉
"...would [i]have[/i] cost a fair chunk..." 😉
£1 per gramme seems to be about the standard for weight saving.
Oh - and I [i]like[/i] light.
CA
Your nothing to me but a light bulb fitting.
EDIT, you pendant you.
druidh - depends where you start and how far you want to take it...if you look into it you might be wurprised where you can save weight cheaply.
Al - the only significant weight saving I could now make on the wee Ti hardtail would be in wheels. The venerable Hope XC/XC717 combination is still on there, but I'm loathe to change such an all-time classic.
DH, 1/2Lb =498.951607 grams, not far off, but nearly double at retail, hence the title 🙁
CA 'wurprised'? are you starting your own dictionary any time soon? 😉
1/2lb = 228gm ❓ ...& typos and stupid grammar are a bit different!
druidh get with the programme and get some stans & light tyres
OK Al, my current wheels weigh 1,740g. Tyres and tubes are an additional 1,360g. What weight savings could I make - and what would it cost me?
No idea of detail, try specing olympics, revolution spokes & some light tyres. I reckon you could save 100gm per rim/wheel and same per tyre. that's 1lb rotating weight.
Oh and this is leading up to "well that costs more than £1 per gram"?
Well I guess so if you bought the wrong wheels 😉
Wheels for a start - mine must be a good 1/2lb+ lighter than yours (Stans Olympic on Tune hubs). FSA stuff always weighs more than claimed - I've got a Syntace F99, FRM 100g flat bars. Rebas are good forks, but not superlight - my RC39s save me another 1/2lb (and work well when they work - the only issue is the maintenance!) SDG Fomula FX you mean? A quick check suggests that's over 200g, so far from light - I have an SLR at 130g.
There you go, significantly lighter bits than all of yours - that's almost 1.5lbs less in my equivalent parts. The thing is, the cost of those parts isn't actually significantly different to the ones you have (well apart from the wheels maybe, but mine were still cheaper than ubiquitous - and heavy - Crossmax SLs). It only gets expensive when you start upgrading perfectly serviceable parts with lighter ones. To get really light you have to be pretty obsessive about every single part though. My bits are on a 21.5lb full sus - plenty of hardtail frames around which would save a couple of pounds of that. Not cheap in total, but not that silly either compared to the cost of a lot of people's bikes on here (mine was ~£4k to build, though most hardtails would be significantly cheaper).
To get to 18lbs you have to get really silly though, and use parts which aren't actually that practical IMHO.
It's 226.796185g, google misunderstood the first time.
Nave a nice evening pendant 😉
2unfit2ride - MemberNave a nice evening pendant
You are ****ing me?
OK Al, my current wheels weigh 1,740g. Tyres and tubes are an additional 1,360g. What weight savings could I make - and what would it cost me?
My wheels are ~1360g, 900g of tyres, ~200g for sealant, valves, tape, so that's over 600g in total.
google misunderstood the first time.
Garbage in, garbage out.
aracer, I want to keep my bike functional, I know what your saying about forks, but having owned Sid's in the past, I have no desire to go back that in that direction.
Wheels will be my next target, although I don't want anything silly light, I haven't had a puncture in ages, touch wood.
Mr Munro above knows a thing or two about light, but then he is a good enough rider to get away with it.
I would have pointed that out but I think he's had a tough time tonight.
Can I crawl back under the rock from whence I came? Its getting aggressive in here 🙁
Only kidding 😀
Really? I used to be quite prolific in my posting way (edit, lame joke removed)back when, then the forum got a tad silly, you have no idea quite how close I was to just deleting my account again.
It was a semi serious question to begin with.
jeez don't take a bunch of fat armchair cyclists like us seriously
aracer - Member>OK Al, my current wheels weigh 1,740g. Tyres and tubes are an additional 1,360g. What weight savings could I make - and what would it cost me?
My wheels are ~1360g, 900g of tyres, ~200g for sealant, valves, tape, so that's over 600g in total.
How much would those wheels cost?
Stans's olympic rims are lighter than the 717s. Run them tubeless with normal tyres.
Lightweight carbon frame and sids
Foam grips.
I think you do need to spend a forune to get a bike that light but you also have to spend a while weighing components and looking up new ones on weight weenies.
Cant get my head around this. You've already got what for most us would be a dream bike.You are now looking at spening best part of a grand to make it a couple of pounds lighter. Why? Could understand if you were some top class racer looking to shave seconds off a lap time. I suppose if you have that sort of money to play with then its up to you. Personnally I've always found that when I want to go faster its far more cost effective to lose weight off me than it is off the bike. You can lose 1/2 a stone fairly easily which is probably twice as much as you could shave off the bike.
1740g is quite seriously heavy for wheels, 1360g isn't light either, particularly for Fast Freds.
If you look at a lot of the 20lb bikes out there they're using the ZTR Race wheelset, which is guaranteed at 1210g including valves etc, add a Rocket Ron (400g) and a Furious Fred (305g) tubeless with a bit of sealant and that's 800g, that saves over 1000g. It will cost you a lot, but I'm just saying, that it can be done.
Grips? Foam grips save 100g over lock ons.
Is your seatpost/saddle combo I-beam? I can't find a weight on the seatpost, but I'll wager it's not that light. I know we've already done stem and saddle.
Pedals?
[i]Mr Munro above knows a thing or two about light, but then he is a good enough rider to get away with it.[/i]
Crikey, that beer must be still be lodged in your system 🙂
I know what you mean though Martin, if you look at the weight per a cost saving on an indivdual item then it can look ridculous, but a lot (well, a lot of little bits that mount up) can be saved by simple things that mount up. e.g. foam grips mentioned by jonb, save a suprising amount of weight, cost bugger all and are comfy. Other stuff you have to be really anal about. When I was making the superlight light I assumed that a double ring setup would be lighter than a tripple, but as it happens the tripple was a good bit lighter as you could run a smaller road block at the back, use a lighter road mech and have a shorter chain. Plus I used thumbies which are way lighter than any other shifter.
One thing to note though is, what with the weak pound, you've picked the worse time to try and make the bike lighter. So I reckon your best option is to make it into a rigid ss 🙂
njee20
1kg on wheels & tyres, bloody hell, thats a lot, not sure I want to spend a grand on wheels & tyres though.
Ian,
I have tried it SS & rigid
[img] http://images.fotopic.net/?iid=y9ubk3&outx=600&quality=70 [/img]
I have also tried big wheels
[img] http://images.fotopic.net/?iid=ylp0ho&outx=600&quality=70 [/img]
That was fun, in a nervous way 😉
I have avoided buying anything this year, up until now, a first for me as I normally buy three frames a year, just don't call me Hora...
My mate tells me that I should cut my brake cables down to save a few grams. Looking forward to doing it, and maybe one of the gear outers too, before putting the offcuts on the scales.
200g to chop? High grams per £ saving in any case. (as long as i don't chop too much)
Fast freds? You mean Olympics? Not a bad weight for wheels that are reasonably robust - I may be a bit off on the weight given I have Rev spokes, as I don't think you can get much lighter than what I have without sacrificing strength (ZTR Race) durability (AC or Extralite hubs) or costing lots more (Prince/Princess). Not stupidly expensive - cost ~£500 to build when I got them, which was less than a pair of Crossmax. No more interested in using ZTR Race wheels than I am in using <400g tyres.1740g is quite seriously heavy for wheels, 1360g isn't light either, particularly for Fast Freds.
Grips? Foam grips save 100g over lock ons.
Good point I missed that one. I didn't expect the Bonty foam grips I have to be especially comfortable, but on the contrary they're actually more comfortable than other grips I've tried.
My mate tells me that I should cut my brake cables down to save a few grams.
Only weight to be saved there if you already have cables that are too long.
I should point out to the weight weenie haters that I have a far better reason than most to have a very light bike, given races I do commonly involve significant amounts of carrying your bike (or at least lots of lifting over styles and fences for other events I do). In this case saving a pound off the bike is far, far more important than saving a pound off your stomach. Though like many with light bikes I didn't have half a stone spare to take off me when I built it anyway (have 2 stones spare now, but that's another story!)
Fast freds? You mean Olympics?
What? No, he said he uses 350g Fast Fred lights, and yet said tyres and tubes are 1360g, that means either his tyres certainly aren't 350g, or he's using DH tubes!
Wasn't commenting on your wheels at all, agree that ZTR Races aren't a viable every day wheelset for most. I use Roval Controle SLs which are 1340g IIRC, and they seem pretty tough.
Ah sorry, Nick, misunderstood you. Though I think that's because you've got confused between two different posters - druidh quoted 1360g, but it was 2unfit2ride who has the Fast Freds (and I quoted 1360g for my wheels, which is what confused me!)
Somewhere around 1350g seems a good weight for a lightweight everyday wheelset.