I’ve just finished a few upgrades on my C456 and am pretty happy with the 25lbs weight. It could be lighter but then it would be either less fun or alot more expensive! Definition of fun and rideable will vary with skill, weight and local trails but who’s got a lightweight but fun HT? What compromises did you/didn’t you make?

Mine’s:

SLX brakes(203/180) cranks
Zee mech and Saint shifter
Pacenti CL25s on Superstar hubs, 24 spoke CX Ray. Tubeless with big ol Hans Dampfs both ends
Wide Kore 35mm bars, 800mm but I can see myself cutting these down to at least 780.
Mag-Ti pedals
34mm X Fusion fork
Reverb.

Which will take a good battering round my local trails, obviously if I lived in Scotland or north Wales I may have gone for some heavier wheels and even beefier tyres.

Sounds about right. My mmmBop alu frame build is an oz under 25 lbs. Crest hope wheelset. Rev forks. A KS dropper. Carbon Haven bars. XT chain set and x9 1×10 shifting. A minion on the front and High Roller on the back. Heavy V12 flats. Built to be fun on the trails rather than to be light, got an XC 29er for that. Though does feel light compared to the FS bikes some of my mates bring for weekends away!

What’s that in proper figures? 12.5Kg? My Solaris (1×10) is 12.7Kg without spending silly money getting lightweight components. Quickest hits on getting the weight down would (for me) be:

replace Reverb with standard seat post
replace fork with rigid fork (obviously not a HT after that)
replace handlebar with carbon version and put on lightweight grips.

I reckon I’d be down at about 10Kg with those changes.

Pretty sensible that I reckon, wouldn’t have those wheels mind but then my ragley has kind of marginal wheels too, I like the zip. There’s a limit to how light you can go while keeping sensible tyres and rims for a bike like this, they get a hard life and there’s no point in shedding a lb if it makes the bike not work.

Not sure what mine weighs now, it used to be a bit under 25lbs but some stuff’s got heavier… Ragley ti with coil converted Revelations, Roval Traversee wheels, mix of saint, xtr and xt drivetrain, formula the one brakes, KS dropper. And massive shockboard front mudguard 😆 With a change of tyres I can take it xc or enduro racing, bounce it down fort william (slowly!)… Whatever I want really. The only bit that could easily be lighter is the fork but I blew up the air spring and I like the coil a wee bit more, worth the extra 200g or whatever it is.

11.5kg, yes rigid forks and standard post would bring it the other side of 11kg possibly, but I wouldn’t enjoy riding it then!

More lightweight but possibly less fun (at least without a bouncy fork and dropper.)

FWIW, ran my Ragley with Flows and Crests. Much prefer it with Crests. As Northwind says, just feels more zippy. If I was going to ride it somewhere properly gnar I might put the flows on, but then I’d probably just take the bouncy bike.

I find mine fun, and don’t feel I’ve made any compromises, but it’s a race bike, so it’s horses for courses.

If it was a trail bike “no compromises” would have been a different set of requirements (dropper and bigger tyres spring to mind) and the bike weight would be higher. That said… Personally I’d probably go FS for a bike of that ilk.

19lbs/8.6kg FWIW.

Edit: I have taken the compression damper out of my fork, I suspect some would consider that a compromise 😕

My Dialled PA is as light as it’s going to get. DT240 on Arch EX, bit of thomson, bit of On one, carbon havens, xt 2×10, Wellgo Mag pedals.

Although I could go tubeless and 1x, I guess, so there is some plausible scope for reductions. 26lbs at the mo.

Seems a strange combo, 24 spoke wheels and tonking great tyres / 34mm forks / 203mm rotors. I’d go for 32 / 32 and take the small weight for strength & solidity.

My Whyte 29CS is around 10Kg out of the box, and plenty fun but not in the way you’re looking for I suspect 🙂

Njee, is that the SuperFly? Nice weight.

Njee, is that the SuperFly?

Thanks, it is indeed! Not even the SL frame, which would drop close to a pound. I love it though, great bike!

My HT weighs in at 22lbs (10kgs) built around a £99 SAB carbon frame (Planet X special), 100mm RockShox SID’s, XT set-up (1×10 and brakes), carbon bars and seat post, 26″ superstar wheels. All up cost less than £800 to build. Could go lighter by changing pedals and going tubeless but suits me fine. It’s fast and flickable. Only used for XC and the occasional XC race – wouldn’t want to launch it off any big jumps though.

who’s got a lightweight but fun HT? What compromises did you/didn’t you make?

Ragley Ti with a 2015 Pike set to 140mm, LB carbon rims, Thomson dropper and big fat tyres and brakes, Havoc carbon bars and an old XTR triple. It’s sort of evolved that way. Bloody brilliant bike with a mutant, upgraded frame, hence the tapered steerer fork. Still around 26lb with pedals on my digital scale thing.

Compromises? I guess I could have saved grammes by going 1x, but I like having a triple for epic bail-out moments and losing the dropper would lose weight, but at the expensive of functionality. It’s been ridden everywhere from Moroccan singletrack, via Lakes epics, local Peak stuff and banged out wee small hours solo laps at 24/12 the other year.

‘How light?’ is always going to be a relative thing I guess. Personally I don’t want a bike that’s compromised on rocky, technical stuff. The bit where I didn’t compromise, I suppose, is the carbon rims. Light wheels but still wide and reasonably tough, so far, touch wood etc.

A lot of interesting and different builds there! I wouldn’t enjoy riding an 8kg bike with no compression damper, I’d rather go CX at that point!

Those Ragley Tis sound like what I’m getting at, pretty much inline with mine.

Point taken on the wheels but they were what superstar had in the sale and have been doing exceptionally well, with the big tyres the abuse never reaches the rim and as Northwind said the zip is noticeable and addictive. Come out of a corner and get straight on the power and you’re flying!

Nahhhh, it’s nothing like a CX bike.

No, a cx bike has a rigid fork up front, not a pogo stick!

I’ve still got rebound damping. Just a preset compression level and no lockout. Actually the original lockout lever was so shit the fork feels better for it.

So it’s the adjuster you’ve removed then mot the damper?

No, I’ve taken the whole Motion Control cartridge out. The rebound is separate.

Right, so you havent got any compression damping at all then? How much did that save weight wise? Genuinely curious here, never heard of people removing cartridges before!

He has, it’s just not adjustable. Fairly common amongst the weight conscious types. Sure there’s a thread on it somewhere.

Definition of fun and rideable will vary with skill, weight and local trails

Very key.

For the trails I ride I only need a rigid single speed so weight is not going to compare to a front sus geared bike.

Allows me to build a strong bike with no weight weenie parts (XT brakes, Thomson stem/post, Ti frame, SRAM X11 cranks etc,.) while maintaining a light weight ~8KG

Unlike most people I enjoy riding as fast as I can uphill so this sort of bike is perfect

Definition of fun and rideable will vary with skill, weight and local trails

Is true this. My Ragley above, it’s built for playing at places with terrain a bit more fun than local. Hence flat pedals, dropper post, 140 forks and Minion’s up front, all pushing the weight up. Prefer the XC race bike for flatter, less rocky, local trails. Lighter, more suitable tyres, 29er.

I wanted to build a lightweight “trail” bike, as an ex weight weenie xc type who’s started riding gnarlier stuff.

I’ve ended up with a Scott scale 720 frame, with rebas at 120mm, hope hoops with Stans arch rims. Zee rear mech, xt shifter xtr m985. 1×10. Heavy slx cassette. Xt brakes, 180/160. Renthal 740 alloy bars , and charge lockons

For more xc rides, I put on SPD’s, Thomson post, and maybe switch tyres to crossmarks. For more gnar, it has flats, a reverb, and a Hans dampf/ardent tyre combo. It’s about 22.5lb in light mode, 23 in “heavy”.

Biggest compromise is the fork. It’s just a bit rubbish. More weight won’t fix that though – more money will!

How much did that save weight wise? Genuinely curious here, never heard of people removing cartridges before

Depends on the fork. On an old Reba World Cup it was about 130g, on a SID RLT a few years ago it was only about 70g, on a Current SID Team it was 147g. 64g for the damper, 83g for the lever and cable.

I’ve got my Cube Reaction GTC SL down to 19.8lbs(9kg)
Only original parts on it are the stem, forks, brakes, rear shifter and mech and BB.
I need a new saddle so it might just drop under 9kg 🙂
I could still get it lighter if I went for XTR over XT

windyg…..

I have just ordered a 2015 cube reaction gtc sl for £1400!

Out of interest, what have you upgraded, and what for?

Any idea how much the wheels weigh- I was considering buying a set of american classic race wheels…

Impressive if real weight. Photos? What you got on it? Impressions?

Wheels I have Crests on Hope’s I could have gone lighter but these are easy to get parts and diy.
KCNC Scandium seatpost
Easton EC70 Carbon bars
Quaxar rotors
Charge Knife saddle
Schwalbe Rocket Ron and Ralph tubeless
M540 SPD’s
All titanium bolts where possible
Ritchey WCS foam grips
1×10 setup
KMC X10SL chain
Elite carbon bottle holder
It’s also a small 650b frame

£1400 is a good price I think I paid just over £100 more for mine.
I can’t remember how much the original wheel weighed, they weren’t to bad if I remember about 1800gms I use mine as a winter/mud set.

I bought Lauf forks 😆

Really should get around to screwing it together

Nice weight saving with Lauf forks they only weigh about 1kg don’t they?

There going on an Open frame with internal Di2 – divorce is going to me loads

Cheers windyg.

Hargroves are doing 20% off. I ordered the last 17″ (29er).

Downside being it’s the horrible green colour

There going on an Open frame with internal Di2 – divorce is going to me loads

Be interested to hear how you get on! I’ll be honest I’ve not heard good things.

Last I weighed my HT it was almost bang on 20lbs (3 or 4 years ago). Built round a carbon scale 26″ frame.

I’ve probably knocked another lb off since then (2× driveline, upgraded all the finishing kit. Bars, stem, seatpin, saddle, pedals, and new brakes.)

But I’ve not weighed it again since, and not really bothered either.

Not had any issues with anything I’ve ridden it up or down. Including rock gardens 😉

This, as pictured

[/url]IMG_1058 by Martin Robbo, on Flickr[/img]

Weighs a tad under 19lbs, the forks only 670g, I know njee will agree when I say to many people exaggerate the lightness of their bikes, my OO C456 like this

[/url]IMG_0839 by Martin Robbo, on Flickr[/img]

Is about 25lbs with some pretty light kit on it, I reckon I could drop a Lb or 2, but I don’t think I could get it under 20 without spending thousands 🙁

Weighs a tad under 19lbs, the forks only 670g, I know njee will agree when I say to many people exaggerate the lightness of their bikes, my OO C456 like this

**Nods sagely**

I’ve always said I think it’s dodgy scales to be fair. I don’t think people weigh a bike and it comes to 24lbs so they think they’ll tell everyone it’s 20, but a lot of extremely ‘optimistic’ weights always come out from threads like this

Mrs S has a 15inch Rock Lobster SL.

Easton Ultralight frame, SID’s, Hope, XT, Thomson, non oversize, narrow Easton bar/stem, foam grips, Ti SDG Deva saddle, Wellgo mags.

Around 22lb at the mo with tubes.

More than optimistic weights I’m finding interesting what people define as fun bikes, some properly lean racing machines and rigid singlespeeds on here! Personally that singular would be interesting to ride but I’d rather get on my ‘heavy’ 456 and blast around the woods and hit some jumps for a couple hours!

The idea of the thread was to see some variation but wasn’t expecting those extremes, good to see we’re not all the same.

Also happy to see my build is in line with others’ similar bikes

Nice thing about my scale is that geometry wise, especially with the 120 fork, its a modern trail bike. 68ish head angle, long front centre, short rear centre. Combined with decent tyres, the dropper, wide bars and flats, it’s as good going down as my old soul 275. But, it fly’s up, and with a couple of small changes, turns into an xc race machine.

I’ve got a rigid single speed too. That comes in at sub 19, but it’s really only fun on singletrack, not on the steeps or the gnarr