Given that a new set of wheels is a fair whack of cash, how much wheel weight do I need to lose to notice a significant change? What will that change be – quicker acceleration? – anything else?

Currently running some 8 year old Hope’s on 317 rims, weight is approx. 1900g. Riding lots of dirt in the Shropshire Hills on fireroads, singletrack, and roots. Not many rocks. Do team and solo 24 hour races each year.

If I go for 1500g wheels will that be a significant difference to 1600g wheels? How about if I go for 1400g wheels?

Interesting question. I would say my fastest wheels on an up and down ride weren’t actually my lightest. The heavier ones feel a good bit stiffer though.

1400g vs 1650g.

Subjectively my experience has detected a distinct improvement in liveliness when you get a 200-250g (per pair) saving.

However given the cost of wheels I’d awlays look to see what you could achieve with lighter tyres first.

I went from cross trail approx 1900 to easton havens approx 1590 I think…they do spin up much quicker and tubeless does make difference as traction is better.

Main difference is flex for me as they are so much more direct & responsive, almost seems to make forks work better & bike tracks better…

I paid £300 for the havens so pretty good value…need the upgraded rear freewheel bearing kit thing to make them last well but it’s free so all cool!

Biggest difference is psychological IMO, kick a bike with light wheels/tyres and it goes. Which in turn makes it more rewarding to pedal it hard, so you go faster.

I predict lots of pseudoscience and not totally relevant articles about road riding are about to be posted.

Cheaper would be going tubeless with lighter tyres. Even though I hate them, Schwalbe tyre evo tyres are very light, and for most people’s riding they great.

What tyre setup are you running at the moment?

Dropped nearly 1lb from bike from a change of wheels and cassette…massive difference…especially to my wallet!

If it helps Ashley when I had a set of the Hope Hoops with Crests they were 1585g. My current A2Z hubs/Podium rims are 1246g at the expense of stiffness and durability.

Current tires are Spesh Captain Control 2.0 rear and Captain Sworks 2.0 front. Running tubes, no particular reason, just what I know. Cassette is XT.

I know I can make some changes to the tires and save weight, but wondering where the most substantial changes come from??

They’ll make you significantly faster if you carry your wallet when you go riding – will make that much lighter.

I know I can make some changes to the tires and save weight, but wondering where the most substantial changes come from??

Weigh everything on your bike, and then fit lighter parts – if needed from a £ per gram perspective, but remember Bontragers’ Law.

http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/wiki/bontragers_law/

What do you weigh?

Sworks Spesh tyres are Normaly at the lighter end of sensible , but ditch the tubes
Hub weight / cassette will not make all that much difference to a wheels performance oter than the whole bike being lighter
For me I always use the lightest wheels I can get away with and anything above 1500g is out
But I’m sub 60kg

Wheels make a huge difference, best place to save weight.
My light set (Tune Prince/Princess, DT Aerolite, Alex XCR-Pro) are 1,200g, my heavy set (Chris Bling ISO, DT Rev, Stans Alpine) are 1,400g. Can really tell the difference on the climbs, the light ones just feel so much better, and that’s just 200g, you could save 500 easily! Unfortunately the seals in the Tune hubs are terrible and I daren’t take them out in the wet, destroyed too many freewheels already, the Kings seem indestructable.

Wheels make a huge difference, best place to save weight.

Yeah right. 200g is ~0.25% difference in your total weight – it is generally accepted that a human can’t detect differences smaller than 5%. The difference you’re feeling is placebo. Oh, and what’s more if you’re feeling the difference on a climb then it makes no difference whether you save 200g on your wheels, on your frame, on your shoes or on your gut.

OK so I have a (very) light bike, but I’m not a hypocrite because I accept it doesn’t really make any difference when riding (I used to do lots of races involving carrying the bike, in which case bike weight does make rather more difference).

I’m surprised at the problems you have with Tune hubs – mine are over 6 years old, have been ridden in all conditions and I’ve never touched them. I’d certainly rate them as requiring less maintenance than DT240, which is what I have on my spare set of wheels (used to be my main wheels) and needed a couple of bearing changes over the same period. Maybe King/Kong are a little less delicate than Prince/Princess.

From experience
Light
Strong
Cheap
Pick 2.

It’s probably quicker and easier to make the difference with tyres first then see how that feels. You should just be able to get the hubs rebuilt onto some lighter rims cheaper than a wheelset.

I used to do lots of races involving carrying the bike, in which case bike weight does make rather more difference).

Do you need medical attention for that gunshot wound in your foot? 😛

It’s well established that weight loss has no significant effect in speeding you up beyond products rata weight loss on climbs even rotating weight. However I do believe that it is noticeable, and thus helpful, especially at the rim.

I buy on “grams saved per £”. You’d be surprised what poor value some “weight saving” upgrades are.

aracer: got a source for your 5% rule?

light bikes are made of, a lot of light parts………..

you have to start somewhere, on mine it was the forks and wheels, after that, gonna cost loads!

I dropped 438g on my wheels & tyres, did I notice a difference ? Yes (but only in the situation below), was it placebo ? Maybe
What I would say is that my ability to accelerate up climbs on a short sprint finish was most noticeable by me and my chums
Did it effect my strava times? No , certainly no dramatic increase in times that I can hang my hat on and say it was the wheels.
I echo what others have said about tyres , you could go buy some Furiouse Fred’s or similar but then they are a quicker tyre anyhow and may bias the results.
How about going the other way and sticking some motorcycle tyre weights on your current rims and seeing if you can feel a difference on your regular route ?
Alternatively if you just need convincing that buying a set of shiny new wheels is the right thing to do just ask this question on the weight weenie forum.

Biggest difference is psychological IMO, kick a bike with light wheels/tyres and it goes. Which in turn makes it more rewarding to pedal it hard, so you go faster.

On tarmac, I agree with this, spot on. The acceleration and feedback is the main difference.
Off-road, the feeling of acceleration in a lighter wheelset is there but I prefer a wider rim and tyre (ie 28mm Flows as a minimum). It’s heavier, but once you’re rolling it’s easier to maintain speed and faster overall – lower pressure tyres are more stable on a wider rim, thf it all rolls with less resistance and more grip, less fatigue on long rides too ime. Better flow, rather than stop-start acceleration. So lighter is good off-road, but only if it’s not compromising optimum tyre/rim design. fwiw my overall-fastest 29er wheelset inc tyres is also my heaviest. (This may also be down to local trails, riding style, 29 or 26 bike, etc)

I can definately feel aracer, 200g in the wheels is noticable. Likewise, full/empty bottle (500g) is noticable. Can’t tell any difference when I have my spare tube strapped to my seatpost or not, only 100g and not rotating weight.
you may be right (although I don’t think so) maybe the heavier hubs also have draggier bearings and makes them feel slower? Both seem to spin well on the workstand though.

Do you need medical attention for that gunshot wound in your foot?

Why – do you think that when you’re picking a bike up and heaving it around it’s weight doesn’t have a far more significant effect than when you’re sitting on it pedaling?

I can definately feel aracer, 200g in the wheels is noticable.

You can feel that you’re going 0.25% faster up a climb? You should contact some bike manufacturers – I’m sure they’d love to have somebody who can detect such small differences to help with their testing.

Carry a 20lb weight up a hill
carry a 20.5lb weight up the same hill
Do they feel different?
.
if I eat three bananas do I feel heavier? No. It’s where and what the weight is that matters. Try a set of Nokkian DH tubes in your XC wheels and tell me if you notice a difference!

DH tubes increase rolling resistance through increased hysteresis loss. That is what makes them measure slower – they feel slower due to increased mass but that doesn’t cause the slower rolling.

For race winning margins saving grams everywhere counts, especially in wheels, but only if achieved without detriment to other aspects. But for most riders the difference between a heavier and lighter decent quality wheelset is purely in feel as opposed to actually making you usefully faster.

Unconvinced by that- if it were true that it’s all down to the thicker tube increasing rolling resistance, you should see a bigger change going from tubed to tubeless as it eliminates it alltogether. But if you replace 100g of sealant with 100g of tube, it feels very much the same.

light wheels make a big difference but stiffness is just as important, especially with a 29er. Its true that 200g saved on hubs makes bugger all difference but 200g saved on tyres/tubes is worth having.

Bontragers law comes from a time before far East based manufacturers could put out light and strong for cheap 😀 Of course all three involve some subjectivity in their definition but I disagree you can have all three (for my needs anyway).

My take on this is that most people tend to ride heavy wheels with heavy tubes, heavy tyres and an overall heavy bike. Vice versa for an overall light bike. I doubt you would notice the difference in even 3-400g on wheels alone when a fair chuck of that is likely to come from the hub and spokes, not just the rim. Get light wheels, faster rolling, lighter tyres and go tubeless then I would say you will start to notice a difference. Go the whole hog and pay attention to the weight balanced with performance of every minute component and then you will really notice a difference. Just my subjective take so take it with a pinch of salt!

I also recall a video of Mavic testing new XC race wheels where they gave several prototypes to the pros of different weights and stiffness and the version which came out on top after pro feedback on feel and also on lap times was not the lightest but the wheel that balanced lots of factors best. I am not sure how much of that is true/ scientific or if perhaps just clever marketing to try and encourage customers to buy their XC wheels which are comparatively heavy to some other custom options. Interesting nevertheless

Unconvinced by that- if it were true that it’s all down to the thicker tube increasing rolling resistance, you should see a bigger change going from tubed to tubeless as it eliminates it alltogether. But if you replace 100g of sealant with 100g of tube, it feels very much the same.

FEELS the same – actually rolls faster. We perceive inertia pretty effectively – we do not perceive constant velocity losses in the same way.

Unconvinced by that too tbh, rolling resistance is easily gauged with the aid of a hill to coast on. You don’t need to judge the rate of speed loss, just the distance you travel before you have to pedal.

That might be true, the wheels in my time-trial bike are pretty heavy (a disc at the back and a four-spoke at the front) From the standing start they feel pretty heavy but once up to speed it’s not really noticable. However, on a hill or accelerating from a slow corner, like off a roundabout, the weight is again noticeable.
Of course MTB wheels get hills and acceleration pretty much all the time where as it’s rare in a TT so the differences would be more apparent on the MTB.

Unconvinced by that too tbh, rolling resistance is easily gauged with the aid of a hill to coast on. You don’t need to judge the rate of speed loss, just the distance you travel before you have to pedal.

That isn’t ‘feeling’ though is it? It’s making a much more scientific style judgement.

I’m running heavier tyres and wheels than most 26″ people I ride with yet my bike consistently coasts faster than most.

I would say that I noticed a difference going from a set of Bontrager joe-bloggs low spoke count wheels to a set of Shimano RS80’s. The latter felt stiffer and tighter and more on its toes in terms of rolling along as well as when it came to the climbs. The bike just felt a little more snappy all round.

That being said, I’m not convinced that this makes for the most satisfying / comfy ride. I also have a set of 32h ‘came with the bike’ wheels from a Cannondale CX bike. They are definitely heavier to hold, but on the bike, I’d say they feel just as stiff in the corners, but more supple when rolling along. Overall, I enjoy my ride better with these wheels than the RS80’s.

I’m running heavier tyres and wheels than most 26″ people I ride with yet my bike consistently coasts faster than most.

Could be anything, weight/momentum of rider, picking better line down the hill, less resistance from better bearings, loads of variables.
Maybe heavier tyres means you feel more confident and so take a more direct line and build up more speed while the lightweight-racing types are mincing around the pointy rocks?

I’m running heavier tyres and wheels than most 26″ people I ride with yet my bike consistently coasts faster than most.

I can out-coast everyone I’ve ever ridden with. It’s down to my weight.

it is generally accepted that a human can’t detect differences smaller than 5%.

Well, that’s utter bollocks! 😆 Try squatting 2.5% less than your max then 2.5% over your max and tell me you didn’t notice any difference.

Try squatting 2.5% less than your max then 2.5% over your max and tell me you didn’t notice any difference.

Is your max the same every day, or is there a chance you could squat 5% more one day than another? Though in any case that’s not a relevant example as we’re talking about detecting small differences in speed or acceleration due to a less than maximal effort, not the maximum load you can lift.

Yes, it was a facetious example sorry. 😈 I do wonder though whether there is a non-linear relationship between the weight of the bike and the feel/acceleration/etc which is maybe why lighter bikes seem to make more difference than they should if you consider their mass as a percentage of the total mass.

I wonder similar … i think (more to the point – imagine ) that the bike goes quicker if I’ve drank the juice out of the bottle, making the bike lighter! Even though the fluid is now in me, and not the bottle.

Try squatting 2.5% less than your max then 2.5% over your max and tell me you didn’t notice any difference.

But that wouldn’t be a 5% difference, it would be a 5.13 % difference, clearly.

🙄

Should be really obvious if it’s 5.13%!
.
seriously though, I think we are just saying ‘it’s noticable’ not ‘it’s really really obvious’.
How much makes a real difference? Was it Aristotle who had the heap of pebbles?