Mountain Bike Weight

[dave123456]

evening,

been cycling for a number of years, started back in the 90's when bike weight was a big thing.

I have always been a relatively smooth rider, and back in the day raced on a 92 trek 8000, and with a few upgrades (use seatpost, Royce bb, campag rims and hope hubs, air b inner tubes and ritchey wcs 1.7 z max) managed to have a cross country race bike at around 24lb even with rock shox mag 21s on....

fast forward 20 odd years, I have a cotic soul frame with rock shox rebas and it feels heavy. admittedly we are now lumbered with disc brakes etc but what should I expect to get a 4.4lb frame down to on a bike...

I'm running Thomson seatpost / stem, bontrager wheelset and it feels sluggish....or maybe i'm getting old!

thanks

[Steve UK]

Hello,

Just reading that was funny as its exactly what I am doing.

I did have a Cotic Bfe frame with Revelation 130mm qr forks, Thompson post carbon bars and Bontranger wheels 1x9 gears and recently decided it was too heavy and this is the reason my mates keep beating me :-)

I have now bought a Soul frame, new Rebas and just saving for some Stans no tube Arch EX rims and Hope hubs, I will also go from 2.2 to 2.0 tyres. Hoping for just under 12kg.... Should be about 1 kg lighter than my Bfe build :-)

As she is without the Reba and new wheels, already feels quicker. I have took off the chain guide too and fitted a Hope retainer ring.

[Herman Toothrot]

My bog standard Vitus Rapid 275 weighed in on my scales at 11.6kg with a full water bottle attached, new bikes are light.

[dave123456]

Steve UK said:

Hello,

Just reading that was funny as its exactly what I am doing.

I did have a Cotic Bfe frame with Revelation 130mm qr forks, Thompson post carbon bars and Bontranger wheels 1x9 gears and recently decided it was too heavy and this is the reason my mates keep beating me :-)

I have now bought a Soul frame, new Rebas and just saving for some Stans no tube Arch EX rims and Hope hubs, I will also go from 2.2 to 2.0 tyres. Hoping for just under 12kg.... Should be about 1 kg lighter than my Bfe build :-)

As she is without the Reba and new wheels, already feels quicker. I have took off the chain guide too and fitted a Hope retainer ring.

very nice bike, but I would say that....

[Martyn-123]

I went touring in Scotland last year on my Specalized Cycle cross with 4 panniers for my tent, sleeping bag, cooker, food for a week and clothes etc.

SIX AND A HALF STONE and it was a little hilly as well !!!!

[Tiddy1]

I was ammused when a friend built up a new titanium Cotic soul with XT kit and lots of nice bits to find that the final weight was 11kg, which was 500g more than my 1998 stumpjumper M2.

But when I built my new yeti ASR5 (26") I was impressed that it came in just 0ver 11kg so that was only 500g more than the hardtail

[vwsurfbum]

I wouldnt worry too much about frame weight, its rotating weight that needs to be light.

Make sure you have light wheels (tubeless) and light tyres and you'll fly along.

My old Lurcher (not the lightest of frames) came in at a smidging over 8kg.


the steerer tube was shortend after i got the correct height.

[Tiddy1]

I'm astounded that that bike weighs only 8kg, my small framed Dura-ace equiped Canyon ultimate CF pro weighes 7.8kg and the canyon frame and fork is 1200g vs the lurcher 2.1kg, where the hell did you save the weight?

[vwsurfbum]

Wheels and tyres and having a fork that only weighed aprox 250-300g.

[dave123456]

Tiddy1 said:

I was ammused when a friend built up a new titanium Cotic soul with XT kit and lots of nice bits to find that the final weight was 11kg, which was 500g more than my 1998 stumpjumper M2.

But when I built my new yeti ASR5 (26") I was impressed that it came in just 0ver 11kg so that was only 500g more than the hardtail

I had a 96 stumpjumper m2, very light and very fast.

[cathalferris]

Makes me feel sad sometimes that my XC bike is about 20kg when built up for summer uplift-serviced trails and 17kg in proper XC mode. 2009 Giant Reign X1, standard except a KS Lev seatpost and 650lb spring. DH tubes and tyres are the summer tyres, and the XC build uses 2.25 ADvantages. Generally I run a 2.5 supertacky DHF in the front and the ADvantage in the rear.

My DH bike is 16 kg though, and that can be dropped by another 2-3 kg if I went to air springs.

I'd like to have a nice light enduro bike, but at 90kg I'm never going to be an uphill demon!

[dave123456]

cathalferris said:

Makes me feel sad sometimes that my XC bike is about 20kg when built up for summer uplift-serviced trails and 17kg in proper XC mode. 2009 Giant Reign X1, standard except a KS Lev seatpost and 650lb spring. DH tubes and tyres are the summer tyres, and the XC build uses 2.25 ADvantages. Generally I run a 2.5 supertacky DHF in the front and the ADvantage in the rear.

My DH bike is 16 kg though, and that can be dropped by another 2-3 kg if I went to air springs.

I'd like to have a nice light enduro bike, but at 90kg I'm never going to be an uphill demon!

20kg??

[yellowjack]

dave123456 said:

20kg??

My thoughts exactly!

I thought mine was bloody heavy when it was weighed at nearly 15kg 'as ridden'.

[dave123456]

90kg of body weight, 40kg of which is quad muscle..

[Westy Carl]

Weight is obviously important, especially on hills. However don't underestimate the effect of drag by tyres.

I've recently been messing with tyres and seen big imprvoements in average speed when putting on different tyres.

[cathalferris]

Yep, 20kg. I was surprised as well. Brand new it was 16.75kg with crappy xc tyres and a standard seatpost on it, and the dropper seatpost, stiffer springs front and rear and decent tyres added the few extra kg.

I can still climb on it, it just takes me longer than the lower weight bikes ridden by those that have more better riding stamina than I do! I can generate huge power for fairly short bursts and outsprint almost everyone else in the bike club I ride with, but I'll be wiped out after 30-45 seconds of that! I'm about 98kg or so when fully kitted with Leatt d30 pressure suit, carbon neckbrace, d30 knee/shinguards, Camelbak Mule with 3kg of water in the bladder and another kilo of isotonic/electrolytes in bottles (I like to stay hydrated when on Alpine spins) and I have 28" thighs with a 32" waist with not a lot of bodyfat.. So I needed a bike built up to withstand the torque I can generate on a bike. My first hardtail ended up with a bent middle ring from the sideways torque when in middle on the front and big on the rear, to about 3-5mm sideways between each spider. That was a bit of an eyeopener. The rings did appear to be made of cheese though! Still the ReignX frame has withstood all my abuse as I've learned how to properly pedal and move my body around on the bike and I'm fairly fast on it on the across and the descents, just not so fast on the ups..

Thinking of tyres and drag, the ADvantages with ordinary tubes in the 60a compound roll very fast for me. In no-pedal races against both DH bikes and XC hardtails down some of the roads I descended in France, I was easily 5-10kph faster than the others in the group. When I transferred to Minion DHF/DHR, I went back to only 0-5kph faster. My absolute fastest speed on the bike was 83kph (on this run http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpXyj_bYaeE) one Easter Sunday on a 3km long road (https://goo.gl/maps/Yqw6v) on Achill Island in the West of Ireland, the bike was 17kg. Took 45 min to cycle up, and 3 min to cycle down! Sorry for the poor video quality, it was a cheapy oregon scientific camera mounted on the handlebars.

[village idiot]

i've just sold a full susser which came in at under 20lbs (with pedals). it's quite amazing what you can achieve when you dispense with one fork leg, a bottom set of pivots and make everything out of carbon.

am now bouncing around on something a little heavier with 160mm of travel front & rear, but still in full carbon.

[dave123456]

as it was puzzling me I weighed my bike. 27.25lb...which seems a bit heavy....

so

Frame: Cotic Soul medium (c2000g)
Fork: Rock Shox Reba SL 2006 vintage (c1600g)
Stem: Thomson Elite (c160g)
Handlebar: Answer Pro taper (315g)
Brakes: Hayes Stroker Gram (670g)
Shifters: Deore XT 9 speed (260g)
Rear derailleur: Deore XT 9 speed (270g)
Front derailleur: Deore XT (??150g)
Chainset: Deore LX hollowtch (???)
Seatpost: Thomson Elite (c250g)
Saddle: Selle Italia Turbo (c270g)
Wheels: Bontrager Select (?? no idea)
Tyres: At the moment Schwalbe Sammy Slick (980g)

Can't think of anything else...cables, BB, chain, grips...

so, anyone see an obvious area for improvement?

[Rolls]

Wheels (and tyres) will make the most difference to weight (and more importantly how the bike feels to ride).
I'm riding road more now, but my decent (none aero) wheels compared with my cheapy wheel set on the same bike makes a moooohosive difference!!

[Hobzy]

Decent wheels will make a big difference...

Knocked nearly 2 lb off my Whippet by upgrading the Bonty wheels that I had left over from my Trek....

Other than that going tubeless and 1x10 is probably the only way to save more weight without spending mega bucks.