A quick Google suggests it’s a Ribble Dececcai EM2. Which did have a claimed weight of 950g.

However, a BikeRadar post had this about one of their other frames of the time.

I have a Ribble Scandium SC61.10A 56cm.
It’s quoted weight is 1050g.
The actual weight is 1370g, so be warned.

So under 7kg is certainly pretty unlikely, and just shows why claimed weights are not reliable!

I imagine an unpainted 49cm bike with no headset cups, mech hanger, seat clamp or cable guides maybe was 950g! They refer to it as “raw frame weight”.

I very much doubt Lance had aero rims and a power meter in 1999…

Dunno if he did or didn’t, but others were definately racing with SRM’s in the late 90’s.

It’s a sponsorship thing though.  If you’re sponsored by SRM then your race bike will have an SRM on it whether it’s light or not!

And they often have at least three bikes even back then, a climbing bike, an aero bike and a TT bike.  Even the early Madone’s had an aero version which AFAIK was just the same frame with an aero seatube and weighed about 150g more than the ‘SL’ climbing version.

So he may well have had a 16lb bike for the alps, and a 19lb for the flat first week. No one rides the TdF on ‘a’ bike, so you can’t really say “so and so rode the TdF on a …..lb bike”

I don’t think anyone had an aero bike (or particualrly aero bits) in 1999. Lance rode a Trek 5500 throughout (TTs aside where he had a re-badged Litespeed), quite probably had an SRM though.

The original Madone in 2004 was an aero frame. For 2005 they did a Madone SL with a conventional round seatpost, and a ‘normal’ Madone which was more aero and heavier. They dropped that and continued just with the SL until the redesigned it in 2008 to again be more aero, with a semi-ISP and what not.

The last year before the weight limit (2003?) Lance had a OCLV Boron Madone SL which got down way below 6.8kg, then the UCI spoiled everyone’s fun! It was only really then that aero stuff proliferated, because there was no longer an advantage to going crazy light on everything.

The last year before the weight limit (2003?) Lance had a OCLV Boron Madone SL which got down way below 6.8kg, then the UCI spoiled everyone’s fun! It was only really then that aero stuff proliferated, because there was no longer an advantage to going crazy light on everything.

See my link on the previous page 😉

2007 Spesh Roubaix, Cost £1800 & weighs 8.35kg sans pedals. If i spent £1900 on one today i’d end up with a bike weighing 9.8kg albeit with discs. Progress eh?

As a serial frame weigher, I think real weigh being 20% over claimed weight is realistic these days.

eg My Supersix hi mod – 860gm (700 claimed IIRC)

2007 Spesh Roubaix, Cost £1800 & weighs 8.35kg sans pedals. If i spent £1900 on one today i’d end up with a bike weighing 9.8kg albeit with discs. Progress eh?

That’s a little unfair – 5% inflation in 10 years. At £2,500 it’s probably closer, and discs will skew it anyway.

As a serial frame weigher, I think real weigh being 20% over claimed weight is realistic these days.

Probably not far off. I think mine was claimed 800g and real of 920g albeit custom painted, so they can’t account for that.

OK, so you got me doubting myself, and I have little to do at work so here the Ribble bike numbers pulled from weightweenies.

Easy to get the bike under 6kg, so I don’t think 7kg taking the piss!

Edit – let me try that again

That list doesn’t seem to include tubes, chain, bar tape , cables or brakes

Mine is a 2018 allez Elite Redhook, road.cc have it at 8.77kg / 19.33lbs as tested, I’ve changed the following:

Wheels – from stock DTSwiss R460’s on no mark hubs to Fulcrum Racing Quattros – same weight

Tyres & Tubes – from Spesh Espoir Sport Wire bead & tubes to Vittoria Corsa G+ with Conti Racelite tubes, weighed at 350g lighter

Saddle & Post – Spesh Toupe Sport & bogo alloy post to Spesh Power Expert & FSA SL-K Carbon post, weighed at 300g lighter.

So including cages & Garmin mount (we’ll call it 150g all in) I reckon the bike is 8.27kg / 18.23lbs

Not bad for an alloy framed, carbon forked 105 equipped bike with a 11-32 cassette and a fancy paint job.

Photo before new saddle & post

That list doesn’t seem to include tubes, chain, bar tape , cables or brakes

And comes to a total under 6kg

350g for calipers, 250g for brakes, 100g for cables, its still well under 7kg…..

So what do the unmentioned things weigh?

then, what do the things you have listed actually weigh?

or are we going down the, well travelled, ‘my enduro bike has a 100g saddle to total weight must be 23lbs’ road

So what do the unmentioned things weigh?
then, what do the things you have listed actually weigh?
or are we going down the ‘my enduro bike has a 100g saddle to total weight must be 23lbs’ road

I am not claiming a specific weight, but other forumites seem to believe its impossible for a scummy Ribble bike to be lightweight. As I said I never weighed it but know from experience that it was very light. And I think the numbers prove that its somewhere near 7kg. You could say 7.5kg if you doubt the claimed weights, its still a very light bike for £1k in 2005.

Ignore this

Chorus brakes 302 g each
Chorus chain 250 g
Conti race light tubes 65 g each
Cables/ outers 200 g approx
Fizik Performance Bar Tape 52 g
That’s over another kilo

Chorus brakes are listed at 350g for the pair in 2005.

200g for cables, what are they made of? Lead? Outers are listed at 39g/m

Noone is saying the ribble is scummy.. But its a 13 year old alloy frame. I would be willing to bet a significant amount of cash that it doesn’t weigh 950 gr. I mean how many sub 1kg alloy frames are there on sale today

As has been said you can’t take manufacturers claimed weights and just add them all up. Also, you haven’t factored in the pedals which are kind of important . I’d say all in its more like 8kg, which is still bloody good for an alu frame roadie even now.

My Roadie is light, 6.1kg incl peddles and cage.

If I put my light rims on its 5.8kg..

Haven’t ridden it for a couple of years mind, so if you add the dust in it must weight 7kgs 😜

Bike weighs 76 kilos with me on it and 7 kilos without.

Defy SL with dura ace and pslr 0 aero carbon clinchers. Ultegra cassette (a la pro).

If you think weight doesn’t matter, at least one rider has been DQd for riding a national race with an underweight bike.

My TT bike is seriously heavy. My race bike is about 7.4 kilos with HED wheels. My fixed Kona is about 8.5 kilos.

I don’t worry too much about weight.

I think my boardman 2012 team edition carbon weighs about 8kg.

Feels light to me as the last road ish bike was one of their CX bikes that weighed more than my full suss.

All a bit meh as I weigh 3.7 medium sized planets.

Still, riding a lighter bike does feel good, assuming it can take the strain and not flex like a rubber band of course.

My 2001 S-Works road bike (this is before they split it to Tarmac, Allez etc)

(generic image but it’s not far off this)

That’s bang on 17lb on the digital scales in my bike shop.

Dura Ace 7800 10sp groupset, American Classic Sprint 250 wheels, carbon fork, bar, stem, seatpost. It’s actually really impressive when you consider the technological advances over the last 17 years that it could come in that light. Front end is a bit flexy though when compared to modern bikes.

My Condor Fratello Disc is 22lbs – think that might include mudguards and pedals.

But like myself, it’s built for comfort, not speed.

Careful crazy legs, its been proven on this here thread that any alloy bike that’s over 3 years old could never be under 10kg!

Maybe some people don’t like the fact that a 13 year old alloy bike could weigh a similar amount to there modern carbon superbikes that cost them a second mortgage!

Careful crazy legs, its been proven on this here thread that any alloy bike that’s over 3 years old could never be under 10kg!

In the numerous edits I made of that post to try and get the picture to embed, I accidently edited the weight. It’s 17lb. Seventeen.

Still not bad, that’s 7.7kg.

Maybe some people don’t like the fact that a 13 year old alloy bike could weigh a similar amount to there modern carbon superbikes that cost them a second mortgage

Erm, you have not demonstrated that to be a fact, not even close.

Chorus brakes are listed at 350g for the pair in 2005.

200g for cables, what are they made of? Lead? Outers are listed at 39g/m

Oops, my mistake on the brakes, Dura-ace are 205 g a set according to weight weenies.

I still think sub 7 kg is not an easy ask. My 58 cm bike has claimed weights of frame/fork of 1300 g, wheels 1400 g, Ultegra groupset 2309 g, lightweight finishing parts incl 23 mm tyres, carbon seat post/bars. But in the real world still weighs 7.5 kg.

21.5kg! 😆

Erm, you have not demonstrated that to be a fact, not even close.

Erm, sub 7kg on listed weights, so even with a bit leeway and a set of pedals its still around 7.5kg in my estimation.

And QRs…and whatever else you’ve “forgotten”…in your “estimation” 😀

Quite the bargain though obvs.  Presumably you’ve got a 5kg bike just now that you put together for £450? 😀

2007 Spesh Roubaix, Cost £1800 & weighs 8.35kg sans pedals. If i spent £1900 on one today i’d end up with a bike weighing 9.8kg albeit with discs.

Well mine cost £1,100 (even at full RRP it was only £1400) and it’s 8.28kg

This is the best I can do I`m afraid, seeing as I don’t have the bike any longer. Feel free to tell me which bits are wrong, and I know there are a few minor bits missing like wheel skewers and bar tape, but it shows the bike is easily in the ball park of 7kg.

I have also included actual vs claimed weights were they are available.

10 seconds on Google yielded someone saying their 52cm EM2 frame actually weighed 1200g, so add 250g there.

You’re still missing tubes, bar tape, rim tapes and skewers from your list, combined that could easily be 400g. You’ve also cherry picked the lightest reported weights of things and you’ve not got actual weights on things where there’s often a lot of variation – wheels can easily be 100g over claimed.

It’s a nice bike (for its day), it’s a light bike, but surely you can see why people are questioning you, not least because you don’t actually know what it weighed and are just making up numbers based on what you think it should weigh! You even said you “guess” it weighs under 7kg, people are just pointing out why your guess is almost certainly wrong. I’d say 8kg is realistic.

Out of interest, does anyone know what the lightset aluminium road frame weighs?

IIRC Kinesis claimed 700gm for the Aithein, whic is obvs horse****, and I’m sure I saw it weighed at 1kg+

No they are not, people at also guessing that it cannot be right because its an alloy bike from 13 years ago. Like I said add all the little bits like rim tape (10g), tubes (I included with the tyres), skewers (~80g) and the 300g YOU claim the frame weighed over the manufacturers weight and its STILL under 7.5kg.

I am not trying to score points, or get kudos for I bike I owned 13 years ago. I don’t care.

I am just pointing out that the people who scoffed and laughed and said it must be way more than that are actually way out. The bike could actually have weighed close to that, even with nearly 50% leeway on the frame.

No they are not, people at also guessing that it cannot be right because its an alloy bike from 13 years ago

That was the initial catalyst, yes, doesn’t seem wholly unreasonable. There’s nothing on it at all that’s particularly light except the fork and the claimed weight of the frame , from a brand very widely accepted to make up numbers on frame weights.

If you don’t care stop trying to justify it. Simple. I honestly don’t really care if you have a spreadsheet missing a few bits that adds up to a number you want it to weigh, it’s no more truthful.

IIRC Kinesis claimed 700gm for the Aithein, whic is obvs horse****, and I’m sure I saw it weighed at 1kg+

I’m glad it’s made up, that would be terrifying! The Trek Emonda ALR is pretty light I think, they claim “lightest production aluminium frame”, but it’s 1050g for an unpainted 56cm which doesn’t strike me as that light. I’d expect Cannondale to have a lighter offering.

… lighter than my MTB bike. Nuff said 😀

Cheers!

I.

I didn’t think Trek market the Emonda ALR as a lightweight bike? It’s a decent crit bike, but not light. I looked at getting one last year, pretty sure I was expecting it to be about 8.5kgs for a size 52 with Ultegra and heavy 50mm deep wheels with Alu brake track.

CAAD possibly up there for lightweight alu frame.

LBS had the Uber lightweight Emonda SLR in a year ago, about 4.5 to 5kgs I think. I’m sure it would have been a top bike but felt like a show bike rather than something I’d want to ride.

Out of interest, does anyone know what the lightset aluminium road frame weighs?

Cannondale and Trek both have a couple of offerings around the 1050g mark. For years the holy grail of aluminium frame building was always 1000g and there have been numerous special frames, one-offs etc which have been around that but in terms of production they’ve always tended to be a bit more conservative.

If you really did have a budget aluminum bike with a frame weight of 950 that was 13 years old I would very much doubt the frame would still be in one piece.  Unless it wasn’t ridden….

No they are not, people at also guessing that it cannot be right because its an alloy bike from 13 years ago. Like I said add all the little bits like rim tape (10g), tubes (I included with the tyres), skewers (~80g) and the 300g YOU claim the frame weighed over the manufacturers weight and its STILL under 7.5kg.

I am not trying to score points, or get kudos for I bike I owned 13 years ago. I don’t care.

I am just pointing out that the people who scoffed and laughed and said it must be way more than that are actually way out. The bike could actually have weighed close to that, even with nearly 50% leeway on the frame.

You’re on a thread populated by weight weenies about weightweenieism. Even your partial spec comes to >7kg.  If mine’s 7.3-7.5kg depending on bottle cages, garmin sensors etc, then there’s very little chance a light fork is enough to offset almost everything else being heavier. I spec’d that CAAD up with the express intention of making as light as possible within the budget, there were spreadsheets and hours of googling involved! That’s why it has arguably crap brakes because they weigh considerably less than any normal ones, the rims come from the first batch of stans Alphas because they were a lot lighter than subsequent versions (and I’m sure they will crack and or wear out in <2000miles if 90% of reviews are correct) , the cassette is 11-23 and the chainsets 36-50 because that’s the lightest combination even if I can’t pedal it up hills. Even with that level of gram counting and concessions against useability it’s still in the mid 7’s.

Link to the full spec of my CAAD4

https://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=106624

The wheels are 250g lighter

Your cranks are not going to be 650g, mine are 750 and were lighter than contemporary dura ace. Your missing a BB or chainrings from that number.

The brakes are 100g lighter

The saddles 60g lighter

The stems 30g lighter

The skewers 40g lighter

If you’d just said “about 8.0 – 8.2 kg” no one would have questioned it (not bad for a 13yr old  no-frills alloy frame and sensible build).