How much would you pay to save weight?

[pawnii]

Who said having a nice bike has anything got to do with ones performance anyway?

I'm 58kg and ill prob hit 55kg in Jan so I don't need to concentrate on loosing anymore weight.
Not that any of this matters when it comes to me being a weightweenie.

Having a lightweight stiff road bike is no more than a hobby.
No different than building a car, boat or motorbike.

FWIW my bike costs $1.69 a gram


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[toolonglegs]

Bargain

[singlespeedscott]

Oh you mean just alloy and steel parts... No carbon allowed. Meh... You would be building the ultimate noodle.

Light weight oversized steel and aluminum would hardly be a noodle

If you are a wippet it might be fine... but it would have to be pretty light weight if your going to run alloy forks and standard wheels. Personally I wouldn't ride a super light weight alloy coke can ... maybe a CAAD10 though ... but I will keep the carbon fork.
On how much people spend ... I turned up to a stage race in June where everyone was running super lightweight clinchers etc ... I had a fat day .

I would use a steel fork over an aluminum one.

[Arlberg]

Or get one of these, 4.9kg with Di2. Even lighter with Sram Red.

http://www.stevensbikes.de/2014/index.p ... lang=en_US" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

$3.02 per gram

[kb]

Oh the shame... big effort on my part, but only a fraction over 23 mins
I have no Idea what why either, I wasn't even feeling leg heavy.

You will be tomorrow

[jules21]

i range from 80-85 kg. about mid-way on that scale at present. why would i spend a fortune trying to shave 1 kg or so when i can drop another 2-3 with more disciplined dieting?

i prefer to spend the money on another bike.. like a CX bike, and the legal representation when my wife initiates divorce proceedings for buying it..

[pawnii]

because it'll be a nicer ride. the bike will disappear underneath you, accelerate quicker, turn in and out of corners quicker and easier...

why do ppl compare bike weight with rider weight anyway? Regardless of your weight do you think you'd enjoy riding a 10kg bike over a 5kg bike?

add 2kg to your bike and see how it handles and then tell me bike weight isn't important.

[winstonw]

get an 85kg rider to take 2kg off a 7.5kg bike and see how confident he is to gun it downhill without a worry of speed wobbles, or get out of the saddle in a crit and worry about frame flex effecting the bottom bracket, or the rims flexing and rubbing on the brake pads, or the bars snapping in your hands, or gunning it over 230km of rough country road, then getting up the next day and doing the same...

as my mechanic says, lighter components compromise something...you better be damned sure it isn't your life.

[pawnii]

yes i agree that light components can compromise something...sometimes.
the trick is to get light components that don't compromise anything

I wouldn't worry about speed wobbles or frame flexing bottom brackets , brake rubbing rim flexing, bars snapping or rough roads (how rough are your sealed roads anyway?)
Just make sure you have the right setup for the job.

you wouldn't take a climbing bike to Paris Roubaix or vice versa.

I'm not talking about 5kg custom weightweenie bikes here i'm taking about going from 8kg to 6kg.
If money was no object i reckon you could build a stiff bomb proof 6kg bike for a 85kg rider.
All my lightweight parts are rated up to 90kg rider limet.

[munga]

i'm sure some of us like arguing for the sake of it.

[Nobody]

[pawnii]

Furry muff


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[Dimis]

Sorry... Quoted from a post above... but now that it has been removed my post is out of context and irrelevant. Bit of a shame, because I thought both posts were valuable to this thread.

Kind regards,

[Nobody]

[munga]

Why do you comment when you have little interest in road racing and you shout from the rooftops about your disinterest in weight weenie concepts? You should find another thread/forum, or stop being an antagonist.

[jules21]

i wrote above that i wouldn't fuss over weight weenism, but in truth i love the idea of a high-end, feather-light bike. i just don't kid myself i'll be winning A grade races when i get it (not saying anyone here does).

[pawnii]

and the legal representation when my wife initiates divorce proceedings for buying it..

makes me wonder how cheap would the cheapest 6.8kg build cost.

[RonK]

as my mechanic says, lighter components compromise something...you better be damned sure it isn't your life.

But didn't mechanics say the same back before sub 10kg bikes became the norm? Before sub 9kg bikes became the norm? Before sub 8kg bikes became the norm?

As far as I can tell, the sky hasn't fallen down yet.

[jules21]

i've chaulked up about 15k on my WH-R500 rims. those wheels are ~1900gm heavyweights and bulletproof. i'd feel safe trading them with lighter wheels for racing (actually my racing wheels are 1600g mid-weights).

it's only once you get down to the ridiculously light stuff that i'd be worried.

[winstonw]

as my mechanic says, lighter components compromise something...you better be damned sure it isn't your life.

But didn't mechanics say the same back before sub 10kg bikes became the norm? Before sub 9kg bikes became the norm? Before sub 8kg bikes became the norm?

As far as I can tell, the sky hasn't fallen down yet.

I recall that in 1982, when living in the US, my LBS was very excited about the new Cannondale aluminium frames with oversized tubing.
They didn't report failures in the first few years that I dealt with them, and sales volume quickly grew to give Columbus and Reynolds tubing a serious grubbing.

OTOH, I see carbon deep section wheels dying regularly and low spoke alloy wheels doing spokes....and a guy in a Nundah A grade race a few weeks ago had his carbon bars snap in his hands in the straight, thus catapulting OTB. I'm sure at the time he felt the sky had fallen on him

[winstonw]

i've chaulked up about 15k on my WH-R500 rims. those wheels are ~1900gm heavyweights and bulletproof. i'd feel safe trading them with lighter wheels for racing (actually my racing wheels are 1600g mid-weights).

it's only once you get down to the ridiculously light stuff that i'd be worried.

"for racing" is the key. I think in decades past, average Joes couldn't afford multiple sets of wheels. I couldn't anyway...and many of the guys who seemed to race were working or low middle class. Don't remember knowing any well heeled cyclists in the 70s and 80s.

[jules21]

"for racing" is the key. I think in decades past, average Joes couldn't afford multiple sets of wheels. I couldn't anyway...and many of the guys who seemed to race were working or low middle class. Don't remember knowing any well heeled cyclists in the 70s and 80s.

good point - i started racing in 1991(?) for a year or two and only recently came back to it. wow - the scene has changed. back then it was plumbers and other tradies - i looked like a bit of a girl, being young, rake thin and with long hair and got abused first race i turned up at. the few female racers back then were probably racing for an opposing team. now it's all marketing professionals and company directors with $15k bikes. you still see the odd old school stalwart handing out 'advice' in the bunch though

[__PG__]

When buying my new bike I drew up spreadsheets for every single component choice. $1/gram was usually a good guideline, although I threw that out the window when choosing the frame.

Moving from a ~10 kg bike to a ~7.5 kg bike is interesting but you only really notice the difference in the initial surge of acceleration. If you are cruising around, or going on long gentle climbs it doesn't make much of a difference.

But putting the power down on the flats and getting over 40 km/h...it's much easier on a lighter bike, as is climbing 10%+ gradients. Although you also have to factor in the difference in frame stiffness.

For the record I've ridden the same wheels on both bikes.

[pawnii]

even at 3% you'll notice the benefits of a lighter bike. every pedal stroke is a micro-acceleration so when climbing, light wheels really make a difference.

[TMjpn]

I've paid a fair bit over the last 2 years to shed weight of the bike.. 3 frames later and I still haven't reached 6.8!

That said though I prefer quality over the lightest weight in my parts.

So as long as the ride is smile inducing and the bike can take the effort - to me thats all that matters.

Guys like Cancellara haven't ridden a bike (AT) 6.8 kilos since... forever