[Closed] What difference does a light bike make?

What are the benefits of having a light bike

When you sell it, it's cheaper to post?

i had a mount vision that weight just under 24lb climbed great but very sketchy on the way down

if your into marathons and stuff it makes loads in my view.
but if your choice of bike fits you riding style i wouldnt worry about it.

Its easier to pedal up hills and go faster on the flats, Nothing else too it. Light bikes ride nicer on most styles of terrain. Pure DH riding then maybe not. But who actually does full on DH in the real world. Even the DH riders these days have an eye on the weight of the bike. You would find the modern DH rider has a bike thats quite a bit lighter than say ten years ago.

People have heavy bikes because they can't afford a light one end of!

LOL at uplink 🙂

the cost of replacement parts is higher.

the ratio of cost increase/weight loss is not proportional.

You can kid yourself that because it feels faster (particularly uphill) that it really is to any significant extent. 😉

oh and you win the carpark cockfight 😉

here we go again.

It's safe to say this is rather an emotive subject

[url] http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/losing-weight-off-the-bike-what-next [/url]

It makes no difference if you live and ride on flat land.

Otherwise... 🙂

You need to try one, I love mine!

+ 1 for CG view. Try a real light 140mm bike then you will know 😉

epicyclo wrote, "It makes no difference if you live and ride on flat land."

And also, never accelerate or brake 😉

It's also much easier to get onto the roofrack or into a bike stand.

How much does your uzzi slx weigh? i think mine weighs around 32lb i have never really thought of it being heavy, just built to last.

Look, a 20lb hardtail is going to be pretty rubbish if you like to go downhill hard and fast on technical terrain. Conversely a 40lb freeride rig will be poo if you like to pedal on anything with an uphill gradient. However, if you're not sacrificing the ability of the bike by going lighter, then it is a no brainer: Lighter = better (but also more expensive)

Has anyone mentioned "light, cheap, strong; pick two" yet?

Evening Curly ;). The weight of the Intense was part of it IMHO. We where riding Thetford was the other problem. The Intense felt loverly and plush when i was bouncing around on it, fantastic for bombing down rocky decents or for scrabbling up dodgy climbs where it would carve traction but on the trails we have here it was just to much. Any climbs at Thetford are usually very smooth, 1 - 2 min at the most. You can either honk up them quickly or just spin up them smoothly. Now i weigh 2 stone less than you and even pedalling it around the car park i was getting a fair bit of bob on the beast. Does it have platform damping? also at Thetford due to the trees and some of the trails there can be a fair amount of accelarating out of the corners on twisty tracks, dragging the Intense back up to speed must of been tirring. Don't get me wrong i thought the Intense was a fantastic bike, would love to ride it in wales or the peaks, somewhere to really make use of it. But it's to much bike for Thetford as it is. Maybe stiffen the suspension up and fiddle with youre compression and rebound damping to tame some of the kangaroo antics and i reckon it would be alot easier to ride around there. Saying that it just means i expect to see you there again soon!

What difference does a light bike make? A bigger hole in your pocket!

I personally Buy good OS quality parts that last and wont break, well for the best part anyway! At over 200lb super light wheels, forks etc just don't last and yes I have tried them although it was a few years ago now. Not to mention that the parts flex like mad. Good if your a light weight but not worth looking at IMO if your on the heavier end. Even if your on a 22lb bike the person that weighs 10.5lb on the same weight bike is still going to whip you anyway on that long climb. But on a burlier bike you will have a bigger smile and be going faster on the decent!

in my experience ..... it throws you to the ground faster.

Diference is psychological, but not insignificant.

All IMO.

i did not go for light for 2 main reasons, i am heavy so the grammes i save with ££ are a fraction of what i'd save if i ride my bike more and drink less.. i can at least "ride more" the second option is not likely 😛 .

Secondly i am never going to be little and have a bad habit of breaking things no matter how hard i try not to so i buy bombproof and if its light its as an an afterthought.

So for me its Light, cheap, strong pick two - or just get bombproof. I think the lighter the better but its diminishing returns for your wonga and choice of bike gear depends as much on the riders conformation, riding style/skill and terrain. Bling/tarty bike/bragging rights also have major influences on this topic, its our hobby and our cash so fill ya boots and do what makes you happy. As long as your happy who cares 🙂

It's easier to lift over the car getting it out of the back garden.

That's all, I think?

I definitely think lighter is better, within reason, but I wont sacrifice strength and stiffness. Hence my xc/trail bike is Dialled Alpine. It is light where it can be, but I wouldn't change my lyriks for revs or even pikes and I'm keeping my gravity dropper thank you very much.

Rider weight is definitely a consideration.

Put 100g of stones in your saddlebag.
Can you tell the difference ?
Put 2kg in.
Now can you tell the difference ?
Would you pay an extra £20 for a pair of 'bars because they are
50g lighter ?
Would you pay an extra £200 for a crankset because it is 200g lighter ?
Keep messing with the weights and the prices and eventually you will reach a compromise between what you want and what you can afford.

When I raced XC I light bike made sense as it certainly helped when you were beasting up a hill. But now I dont sprint everywhere and am significantly heavier I prefer a bike that can take some abuse. I dont think weight is so much of an issue.

Extreme example...

My sons bike weighed 17.2kg when bought (Norco B-Line 24") and after much modification, handmedowns and new bits it weighs 13.5kg. So we saved 3.7kg. He only weighs 30kg...

The difference it makes for him is on a another planet - for one he can now pick it up!

And you can see the real difference, just following him.

Lighter is better, its just that to maintain strength requires cash.

Main advantage....

...you can wind up the 'you can't feel extra weight merchants' biffing along on their drain pipe specials 😉

Weight saving is incremental, lighter is always faster given the rider has sufficent skill/fitness to make that lightness pay.....

Even if your on a 22lb bike the person that weighs 10.5lb on the same weight bike is still going to whip you anyway on that long climb.

I think you're suggesting that someone 10.5lbs lighter, on the same bike is going to be faster? Or did you actually mean someone who weighs 10.5lbs!?

Either way, rider weight and speed aren't necessarily related!

A lighter bike is easier to pedal uphill. Full stop. It doesn't matter if you weight 200kg, it's still easier!

My point about light bikes is that the difference when climbing/accelerating and so on is very easy to measure/calculate - save 5lbs on a 25lbs bike and the bike itself will be 20% easier to get up hills. Add in a 170lb (just over 12 stone) rider and that drops to 2.6% - definitely easier but not all that significant compared to other factors (plus saving 5lbs isn't that easy/cheap!) which can have much greater effect and are well know to fluctuate by a fair amount day to day - eg hydration, rider weight, fatigue, nutrition, psychology etc.

Of course, if you had a 175b rider with a 25lb bike and then gave the rider lipo, taking out 10lbs of fat and then attached those 10lbs to the bike instead of the rider, the rider would complain that the bike felt heavy and slow despite the fact that he would almost certainly ride up the hill/accelerate and so on exactly the same as before - that's the psychological difference - light bikes DO feel nicer to ride even if they don't inherently make anywhere near the difference that the rider might feel they do.

There's also a lot of confusion about whether it's the light weight or the bike design that makes it feel good - bikes that are light tend to be designed to transfer power well/be efficient so it's easy to confuse reason the bike feels good when climbing/putting the power down, attributing it to a couple of lbs of weight saving rather than a stiff frame/wheels/etc with fast tyres and so on.

to everyone who says no diffeerence - your dumb. seriously dumb.

there are four elements to vehicle handling. improve them and vehicle gets faster.

acceleration; straight.
acceleration; cornering.
braking
handling.

reducing the weight is the only thing which increases all four.

Define a measurement for 'Handling'. I know people who reckon bikes handle better with heavier wheels but they're air-merchants so like the extra stability that gives them in the air...

Has anyone actually said that it makes NO difference? (Other than epicyclo and I think he was trolling...)

I had mine powder coated in white, I like lighter bikes.. 🙂

to everyone who says no diffeerence - [b]your[/b] dumb. seriously dumb.

Brilliant BTW 🙂

Main difference for me is that a light bike gets up to speed quicker.

Don't worry about what the Retrobike people say though, you know how obsessed everyone was with weight back in the '90s.

there are four elements to vehicle handling. improve them and vehicle gets faster.

acceleration; straight.
acceleration; cornering.
braking
handling.

reducing the weight is the only thing which increases all four.

Handling is an element of vehicle handling? Reducing weight 'increases handling'?

to everyone who says no [b]diffeerence [/b]- your dumb. seriously dumb.

Brilliant BTW

Even better 😉

Main difference for me is that a light bike gets up to speed quicker

Exactly... see my post re. 'rediscovering an old bike'... rode my old ASR last night for the first time in a year or so (been riding an Enduro SL mainly instead) and the difference in acceleration was ridiculous, along with the amount of effort needed to keep it at speed. Light is good, but I'm now trying to find a bike that melds the ASR & Enduro into one (light & fast but with planted 'bottomless' travel)...

In the race camp lightness is good.

Though riding a very light bike in the Peak was like going downhill on an empty tin can.

and the difference in acceleration was ridiculous, along with the amount of effort needed to keep it at speed.

Is it 20lbs lighter? or do you weigh about 2 stone?

If not then I stand by my points above - it's either psychological or the 'faster' bike is set up to be fast - eg faster tyres, better position, stiffer under power.

I remember reading a test in a US magazine where they took (road) bikes of decreasing weight and rode them up a long road climb at a constant power. The difference was significant, not the >2% figures being suggested ie your speed increased by a bigger proportion than the weight dropped.

I don't really care why, but it's not as simple as looking at combined rider/bike weight.

you're right, it probably does come down to setup/position or stiffness under power, it's certain that if I was wearing a 2-3lb heavier bag last night riding the ASR I'd still have felt the extra acceleration & speed, definitely. And there probably is an element of psychological perception to it as well 🙂

No, I'm sure you're right Njee since humans don't produce power linearly but the effect of weight (certainly in the relatively small amounts most are talking about) are small compared to other effects that I mentioned which affect your speed far more. If you're a serious athlete doing everything else to ensure you're on absolute top form then it's worth worrying about but otherwise it's more psychological - there's no issue with wanting a light bike if that floats your boat (just as there's no issue with buying bling for the sake of it) but just don't be fooled into thinking that it'll turn you into a riding god 🙂

@ njee20

Agrre, not a scientific test but when I bought my first very high end road bike in 1990 and took it out over the same route I trained on nearly every day the climbing speed increased by a huge margin at a tad over 20%
Approx 9.5MPH average on a given climb yup to 11.5MPH. And when I saw the reading I went back and did it again and climbed at just under 12MPH.

Presumably that same high end road bike was a good bit stiffer too...

I had much the same experience when I changed a really nice but flexy steel road frame I had for an aluminium one which was stupidly stiff.

As I mentioned elsewhere, the changes brought about by making your bike lighter have a very small effect when considered in the context of the real world, which is where most of us seem to ride.

Drop 5kgs from a total weight of 100kgs, will you see a stunning performance improvement?

Or is it more likely that the idea of riding a lighter bike, the 'feel' of the bike act to make you over estimate the effect of the weight loss?

We can and have proved that reducing weight does have an impact on performance, but the size of the impact is only small. Especially when considered in the real world context of a standard STW rider doing a standard STW style ride.

Put it this way; I would spend more time stopping for a wee than I could gain by reducing the weight of my bike by 5 kgs.

Never mind the time spent suspension faffing, tyre pressure faffing, opening gates, closing gates, putting gloves on, taking gloves off, squinting at GPS, arguing about the best way down or up, putting waterproof on, taking waterproof off, unmisting glasses, putting glasses away, losing glasses, finding glasses again, laughing, swearing, falling off, getting back on, taking the mickey, taking a photo, and so on.

but fortunately, light almost always means expensive and boutique-ee, which also usually means exotic and high-tech along with aesthetically pleasing (bordering on industrial art in some cases!), so that's why we buy it really, 'cause it looks good and appeals to our shiny magpie nature... the light bit is just a way of 'justifying' it 😆

tbh I don't worry about the weight, I'm more interested in how it performs and how good it looks doing it 8)

Do you have evidence for that though crikey, or are you just theorising?

I wonder if I've still got the article, it was interesting the difference it made. Figures were more like 80kg for combined rider/bike weight, but dropping 0.5kg off the bike made a hell of a lot more than 0.6% difference, if you think otherwise then I wonder if you're a bit daft.

'A stunning performance improvement' is rather subjective, but I'll wager that you'll notice the difference if you drop 5kg, particularly if it comes off the bike.

I wonder if we can set up a scientific blind test for the magazine? settle this argument for good?

Light tyres and wheels can make a noticeable difference (and as Clubber suggests, not always a positive one - heavier wheels and tyres are a lot more stable over the rough stuff). It starts to get a bit murky after that IMO.

I'm sure a lighter bike feels noticably different under you, because it's a seperate entity.
But both rider & bike climb the hill, as a system, and the only power source is your legs.
How can the physics be any different?

We did the maths yesterday in a different thread.

[url] http://www.analyticcycling.com/ForcesLessWeight_Page.html [/url]

Using the example figures here, a weight change of 0.5kgs gives a .88 secs advantage.

As for theorising, I can wee quite quickly, but I think I might dribble a bit if I tried to beat that time.

Play with the figures a bit, even a 5kgs weight loss up a climb like Minch Moor came out at a time advantage of a couple of minutes, which initially sounds impressive, but not when considered in the real world context of actual riding as above.

Folk saying "I climbed at 12 mph instead of 9mph when I got my light bike" are meaningless unless account was taken of heart rate etc, which I doubt.

There's no doubt the feeling of a light bike can spur you on a bit.

I'd like to see njee20's test undertaken with a few variables: blind testing using identical bikes with weight added invisibly, say in the seat tube; same but with the rider told which bike he is riding; same but the rider mislead as to which bike he is riding.

[i]I had much the same experience when I changed a really nice but flexy steel road frame I had for an aluminium one which was stupidly stiff. [/i]

I agree with this, the difference between my old Peugeot crosser/roadie steel thing and now a proper stiff ali road bike was immense, and not just down to weight and I think my faster times are partly psychological because of it.

But I also agree with njee20 [i]"but I'll wager that you'll notice the difference if you drop 5kg, particularly if it comes off the bike."[/i]
Undoubtedly anyone would be faster if this was the case, and nowadays I don't think lightweight necessarily means flaky performance either, friend has a Hummer that's not got race kit on it, but SX mavic wheels, 120mm rebas, and that weights 24lbs, handles he DH just fine.

The test was done by the a number of riders each riding each bike, using power output, I'm not saying there's no variables, if you've ever tried to ride at a constant power it's not easy, particularly outside. But the results were interesting, and it made more than 0.8 seconds difference!

They were fit guys, so maybe that's a factor, we're not talking about your average STWer, who seems to think 90kg is a healthy weight 😉

I'd like to see njee20's test undertaken with a few variables: blind testing using identical bikes with weight added invisibly, say in the seat tube; same but with the rider told which bike he is riding; same but the rider mislead as to which bike he is riding.

Would be a good experiment this... add in a power hub + Edge 705 to take telemetry?

The other thing worth considering is, unless you are actually racing is it worth bothering about?

If my bike was made considerably lighter, it wouldn't make climbing any easier, because I would put in the same effort anyway. 'It doesn't get easier, you just get faster' is the quote, I believe.

And if I went out riding on a £3k superlight bike with friends riding £1k 'normal' bikes and beat them on the climbs, it would actually reduce my bragging rights! Would I feel better than if I had a heavier bike?

Would be a good experiment this... add in a power hub + Edge 705 to take telemetry?

That's exactly how it was done... They used the Power Tap head though, not too sure what the relevance of the Edge is!

I'll do the wee part of the experiment, but I'll need some kind of liquid refreshment of a given standard to avoid any bias...

[url] http://www.training4cyclists.com/how-much-time-does-extra-weight-cost-on-alpe-dhuez/ [/url]

I can't really agree with the significance of the results though; it would be interesting to see him ride Alpe D'Huez four times on a normal bike and see what time differences he managed without any weight change at all, and more effort should be made to hide the weight change from the rider in an attempt to reduce the psychological factors...

I agree, I'm not so sure about that, still interesting to see. We don't know what rider weighs either, which could be relevant, although the comments suggest he's pretty fit.

The test I saw was a much larger sample, with more linear testing, was a few years back.

Maybe they should use one bike for all tests and add ballast down the seat-tube (i.e. lead weights) without the rider knowing. This would take frame quality out of the equation.

Surely all of us that race strive for lightness. However there is a point of diminishing returns, well for me anyway. I think I could now lighten my race bikes by up to 500g and it wouldn't make any difference to me.

Of course there is, and there's always a point where things are just too light, otherwise we'd all ride Furious Freds all the time!

Odd trial - 1.8kg in the tyres???

I think I need to lose about a stone before any of this is dignificant to me!

This is a classic STW thread, the sort that really puts people off this site.
For anyone that's ever wanted to go faster have they ever looked at making things heavier. And I don't mean things like swapping rigids for suss forks as they are two different things.

What's wrong with a bit of discussion?

Seems like quite a good discussion actually. Most un-STW - No personal insults (other than the brilliant 'dumb' comment), decent explanations of why people hold the view and so on.

I don't see why people taking on a popular view (that lightweight makes a big difference to how fast you ride) and explaining why they think it's not as important as many think is a bad thing. No one's suggested that heavier bikes make you inherently faster, have they?

It doesn't put me off the site 😆

I like discussion and questioning things - I'm not here for a circle jerk.

Just for the sake of reasoned argument....

The current Hour record holder did it on a bike that weighed 9.8 kilos.

Heavier than the previous 8 attempts.

...and we've not even touched on the idea that heavier things go downhill faster yet.

A lot of that weight was in the back wheel - IIRC it had a weighted rim weighing something like 3kg! (assuming we're talking about Sosenka)

This hour record... is that a track record?

If you are travelling at constant speed on flat terrain weight makes no difference.

Indeed, different reasoning for different purposes, I think we're talking about "average" riding here.

Didn't one of the mags recently (last couple of years at least) do some experiments with putting extra weights on the bike and the the rider? MBR I think, had rolls of soft metal wrapped around the top tube and all sorts of things. Mor or less came to the conclusion that more weight equals worse handling bike that was slower up the hills. Not exactly ground breaking...

...and we've not even touched on the idea that heavier things go downhill faster yet.

As do heavier riders! 😉 😆

I think it makes a difference my excuse is that I am very light and short so any advantage I get by dropping weight is welcome cause I can't grow longer legs for more leverage :p . Me combined with my bike should be below 70Kg so if I drop a couple of kg it has to make a difference :p

What I think is more interesting is the fact that aerodynamics has a greater effect than weight in terms of performance, and the skinsuit fiasco apart, I wonder how long it will be before we see deep section down hill rims appear?

Nothing at all.
Though I think there are too many variables in mountainbiking biking to answer this. I also think that some of the 'facts' that are linked to or pasted are to easilly taken as gospel, when nearly all of us are experienced enough to give real world answers based on solid learnt facts.
I always wish my bikes were heavier going downhill 😐
However with road lightness does count IMO
And I think it does with cross again IMO.

Like this crikey?
[img] [/img]

[i]when nearly all of us are experienced enough to give real world answers based on solid learnt facts.[/i]

I would respectfully suggest that we are also all easily capable of fooling ourselves into thinking that some things are more important than they prove to be.

I've done the must get lightest stuff thing, buying the lightest road wheels I could afford, chopping the ends off drops and seatposts, and looking back realistically, it made a huge difference in one place; my head.

edit: Oooh, nice!

However with road lightness does count IMO
And I think it does with cross again IMO.

Yes, it does count but not to the extent that people think it does. Cross will be a bit different for the simple reason that a lighter bike is a lot easier to shoulder/etc!

I'll bet that for most riders, spending say £500 on a training camp in warm weather over winter would be much more beneficial than spending £500 saving weight yet what do most people do (and OK, I accept, not everyone can easily just get a week off work/away from the family/etc to do the training camp whereas you can buy stuff very easily 🙂 )