Commuting Weight

[dynamictiger]

I saw a pool and topic here on the weight of the commuting bike unloaded and I thought...who cares.

I saw a second post on here about average speed of commute or something and I thought ... meaningless

What I thought would be really interesting is how much your bike, bags, panniers weigh in relation to your body weight. After all it is fine for someone carrying say 1% of their body weight to have an average speed of 32 kph, but completely different for another with an additional load of 15% because his wife makes him take all this other stuff in case it suddenly floods snow in Perth in the middle of a medical emergency.

[dynamictiger]

Oh yeah I cant do mine right now. I just changed my bike and am waiting on my new panniers which are about a week or so away. Then I can answer my own poll.

Gut feel...lots is what mine weighs. I have never ever worried about weight in all my life. I just chuck stuff in and don't expect it to slow me down.

[queequeg]

Friday is the worst for me...jeans instead of work pants, extra shoes instead of the work
shoes that are kept at work. Combine Friday with wet weather and I am riding with shoe covers, jacket, rain legs, helmet cover and sometime a spare jersey and/or shorts.
I never worry about the weight, I just stuff it in the panniers and roll!

[KGB]

I'm soft and ridethe motprbike at least once a week to carry most of my clothes. Bicycle days are as light as possible. Backpack only, no panniers.

[mitchy_]

i think your percentage figures might be a little unrealistic.. say 70-80kg person, 1-3% bike weight is from 0.7kg up to 2.4kg

i'd say i consider my commuter is a big weenie, but my percentage is about 8-9%.

[briztoon]

Well I weigh 78kgs and ride a Specialized Tarmac that weighs 9kg to work, so my bike alone weighs about 11.5% of my bodyweight. I think you'll find most peoples bikes alone account for at least 10% to 15% of their body weight. Though I am noticing more and more people riding carbon fibre roadies to work these days, so there could be quite a few heavier riders on light bikes.

I'll have to weigh my back pack fully packed, but at a guess, it's no more than 3 or 4 kilograms. I just have to carry my work clothes, shoes, and a small toiletry bag. I'm lucky as I work at a hospital, towels are supplied in the staff showers.

Looking at my Garmin activities, my speed to and from work on my 8km commute is pretty constant around the 23kph mark. My average speed on my Scott CR1 (weight 7kg) for most of my rides (50km to 75km) is 27kph, but drops to 26kph on 100km+ rides.

[dynamictiger]

i think your percentage figures might be a little unrealistic.. say 70-80kg person, 1-3% bike weight is from 0.7kg up to 2.4kg

i'd say i consider my commuter is a big weenie, but my percentage is about 8-9%.

Some of us are a little larger than others. I doubt my aluminium heavy bike weighs more than 2% of my body weight.

[mitchy_]

i think your percentage figures might be a little unrealistic.. say 70-80kg person, 1-3% bike weight is from 0.7kg up to 2.4kg

i'd say i consider my commuter is a big weenie, but my percentage is about 8-9%.

Some of us are a little larger than others. I doubt my aluminium heavy bike weighs more than 2% of my body weight.

umm... have you done the maths? what do you consider heavy.. 15kg? so you're 750kg?
you'd need to be 200kg for a light weight 6kg bike to scrape in as 3%!

[briztoon]

i think your percentage figures might be a little unrealistic.. say 70-80kg person, 1-3% bike weight is from 0.7kg up to 2.4kg

i'd say i consider my commuter is a big weenie, but my percentage is about 8-9%.

Some of us are a little larger than others. I doubt my aluminium heavy bike weighs more than 2% of my body weight.

3 kilograms equals 2% of some one who weighs 150 kilograms. Seeing as you're going to be flat out finding a commuter on a carbon road bike under 7kg (unless your talking proper weight weenies) I dare say you're not going to find a commuter riding a bike less than 5% of their body weight.

It's easy to work out. Stand on some scales holding your bike, then stand on the scales by yourself. The difference is the weight of the bike.

Me, 78kgs. Me and my bike 87kgs. Bike weight is 9kgs. 100 divided by 78 equals 1.282. 1.282 multiplied by 9 equals 11.54. So my bike is 11.54% of my body weight.

Another example would be some one who weighs 120kgs riding an alu bike that weighs 14kg's is riding a bike that weighs 11.66% of their body weight.

[lobstermash]

Weight is largely irrelevant IMO/E. What slows a rider down much more is drag. Upright position, ultra tough and high rolling resistance tyres, panniers...

EDIT: I usually ride my roadie (Al one is about 9kg, steelie is ~10kg) with minimal stuff in my jersey pockets, however my fixie (for Fridays) is a whopping 12.8kg. Obviously the roadies are faster overall, but the uphill sections are pretty much the same according to Veloviewer...

[ironhanglider]

Weight is largely irrelevant IMO/E. What slows a rider down much more is drag. Upright position, ultra tough and high rolling resistance tyres, panniers...

EDIT: I usually ride my roadie (Al one is about 9kg, steelie is ~10kg) with minimal stuff in my jersey pockets, however my fixie (for Fridays) is a whopping 12.8kg. Obviously the roadies are faster overall, but the uphill sections are pretty much the same according to Veloviewer...

Traffic is what slows me down, quite a lot of my commute is on shared paths with foot traffic, and the rest has lights, roundabouts etc so my speed is not significantly limited by my equipment. Yes I'm slower up the hills, and accelerating, but once I'm up to speed it is just the same.

As for the equation do kids count as loaded weight or body weight? They are able to pedal, so they can offset the 'luggage' effect a bit. Probably quite a bit of aero drag too.

Anyway the stats are bike 35kg, kids 45kg, me 105kg. I'm not a masochist, and the overall weight drops significantly after the school drop-off.

Cheers,

Cameron

[westab]

Well my bike mass is approx 25kg on a normal day - and i think I am about 80kg so my overall percent is about 31% sometimes more sometimes less. Couldn't realy care - I just carry what I feel like in the panniers. Still if I could leave the laptop at work I would be 4kg better off.

Still love being able to ride to work - being able to carry "stuff" lets me ride more. That has to be a good thing.

[clackers]

I'll often commute by hybrid with panniers containing laptop, lunch, work clothes and wet weather gear. Traffic lights hold me up anyway.

As for the 'feel' of riding, of course it's not the same as the roadie on the weekend. Viva la difference.

[cancan64]

My commuter is 13kg, my back pack on a Monday morning is (AT) 9kg and my weight on a good day is 83kg so that places me in the real men zone...although that should read married more than 10yrs

[Blackrock]

80+kg with bike somewhere around 10kg. 8-9%. Weight doesn't bother me as I'm more interested in improving the gear that I am in for a specific location or feature (climbing hill etc). If I can regularly improve (ie lower, smaller) the gear, it means my fitness is improving.
Good idea for a thread though....

[FiveDaysAWeek]

Bike from showroom: 11kg,
Mudguards + lights + rack + panniers(empty): 2kg,
Sprayjacket + work clothes & shoes + multitool + spare tube & levers + towel: 5kg
Me: 93kg +/- 0.5kg

So the fully loaded bike is slightly over 19% of my bodyweight.

[simonn]

Friday is the worst for me...jeans instead of work pants, extra shoes instead of the work shoes that are kept at work.

I understand this.

In a fit of mid-late-30s-itus, and they were cheap, I bought some Converse All Stars. When wearing them I remembered how important fashion was to a teenage me, i.e. how painful they can be to walk in. They now live at work just for Fridays. I have a sedentary job .

Now I drive three days a week. I only really carry lunch on cycling days (of which Friday is one). Might even bring that in on Thursday too so I can do a group ride on Friday.

Weight is largely irrelevant IMO/E. What slows a rider down much more is drag. Upright position, ultra tough and high rolling resistance tyres, panniers...

You don't have a very hilly commute, do you?

[Mububban]

I'm a lightweight 68kg weenie, which is why I got an electric pedal assist for uphills and headwinds. My converted MTB now weighs 20kg, plus I carry an 8kg backpack with hard drives for my work's backups. No panniers as I don't want the hard drives bouncing around.

So my weight ratio is 40%, but the motor of course cancels that out on uphills. On flats though and slight inclines (and downhills of course) I don't use it at all, I try and use the motor as little as possible
I did have the battery konk out after a long ride once, and dragging all that weight up the hill on my chicken legs was not a lot of fun

[lobstermash]

Weight is largely irrelevant IMO/E. What slows a rider down much more is drag. Upright position, ultra tough and high rolling resistance tyres, panniers...

You don't have a very hilly commute, do you?

Depends on what you class as 'hilly'.

The profile of my commute can be found here: http://www.bicycles.net.au/forums/viewt ... 29&t=73022" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Leadlined]

Saw this post and thought it was a very interesting consideration. Measured my loaded weight and found my ratio to be 23%. I sit on around 25ish km/h for the Perth northern freeway PSP run to and from city.

[Summernight]

26-40% Real men start here

~34%... Oh no!!! I've grown a body part!!!

I think the extra weight in the backpack (courtesy of my handbag which obviously contains my kitchen sink ) is good for weights training - if I ever get on the bike without the bag I feel super light and super fast!!!

[pacra]

I empty the backpack every few months, find about $25 in coin and other things I lost months ago in it. A week later it is the same weight it was before.
One daughter says I am worse that any female could be.

[wgc138]

I take as much as I can carry, within reasons of course. Usually, spare change of clothes, lunch, juice blend and maybe a tablet. Most of the time I try to carry less for comfort reasons, but I'll be fitting the pannier on the weekend so it should be better.

[simonn]

Weight is largely irrelevant IMO/E. What slows a rider down much more is drag. Upright position, ultra tough and high rolling resistance tyres, panniers...

You don't have a very hilly commute, do you?

Depends on what you class as 'hilly'.

The profile of my commute can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=29&t=73022" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Your commute is 123m over 18.1km according to strava.

According to the Rowe Scale this is not quite hilly at (123 / 18.1) = 6.8M/km.

(Mine OTOH is almost "mountainous" at 14.1M/km, and thusly my initial comment was made )

[Mububban]

For a personal challenge/bit of stupidity I take on the odd hill without the assistance of my electric motor, so I'm hauling the now-20kg MTB up the hill, with my 8-9kg backpack, on my scrawny legs.....granny gears are wonderful things