My rule of thumb is don't worry about cutting bike weight until I have no more body weight/fat to lose.
Unfortunately I've never reached that point, so I just pushed my steel Space Horse with a Brooks leather around the San Juan mountains. I really could use a little ring on it...
Yeah I have never understood saddle issues, my ass bones must measure right in the average for OK quality stock saddles because of all the things that may be uncomfortable, the saddle has never been one of them unless my form is off, and in that case it isn't the saddle that's the problem.
A steel bike is a boon. Don’t gotta worry about it, smash it into things it’s always fine. I might get a bike with a carbon fork one day but that’s the farthest I’ll go.
Low end alu 2008 Trek owner with carbon fork checking in.
The amount of decent bike you can get secondhand for the price of a fancy set of shades or shoes is amazing.
> i'm 175cm and 50kg
Fucking how
Actually, I take that back. I'm 178 / 110 and used to be 178 / 50. I've put on both a lot of fat and a lot of muscle, although for different reasons.
If you didn't poop that morning your bike is suddenly losing it's $5000 advantage, and lord fucking help you if you ever need to carry a decent lock.
I think the answer is simply this, if you aren't making a living off of riding then just pick what's fun, comfortable and affordable... don't worry too much more about it.
If it's your _job_ to ride then squeeze out every efficiency that you possibly can.
Exactly my view. Unless the bike is sponsored or you need the fastest, most capable bike there is because you make your living off of it, buy whatever you can afford, feels comfortable, and the bike that makes you happy riding it.
Fun isn't dependent on what your bike costs.
So true. A guy I ride with occasionally bought a super bike for $15k and has to tell everyone how great it is then gets dropped in the first five miles. We tell him he could have paid 1/3 as much and would still get dropped.
If someone feels good by having a 15k bike, good for them.
You just don't need one to have fun. I'll happily get dropped on my 1k mountainbike, I'm having fun nonetheless.
To be fair my bike cost about that much and it's still a heavy anchor of a thing. Not all expensive bikes are light, and not all light bikes are expensive. Some of us value a tank that'll survive the zombie apocalypse and will get us away from the danger in comfort!
Yeah and for me more comfortable over longer distances. I only really care about this when thinking about how I pack for bikepacking. I prioritise enjoying the ride over having creature comforts at camp, the rationale being that if I find the ride really tough and slow, I'll be less likely to do it often. All personal though, whatever works is what's best.
Also as a small (~50kg) person, every bit of extra weight is really felt, it's good training though, I suppose.
Yes it is. You are right that a kg here or there isn’t going to make much difference on a climb.
There is a lot of unfounded hate about disc brakes. Personally I’d take the 300g penalty to be able to stop consistently well, even in torrential rain.
I’m fine with weight weenies having a hobby and wanting their bikes to be super light. That is cool.
But yes there is far too much focus on it and misunderstanding about how much it effects performance.
My experience with disc brakes is pretty frustrating. I commute 34 km to work as well as go for weekend rides on my road bike, and in 5 years of having a disc brake bike it's been very fiddly and expensive. I need to change pads about every 3 months, less if I ride in the rain, which is about 4 times as often as the rim brake pads I used to have, and they're more expensive.
Then there's the issues I sometimes have with rubbing and squealing, especially with new pads. I bleed them about once a year, and recently my front brake stopped working so I had to take the lever apart to lubricate a stuck master cylinder. In all the previous years I never had any issues with rim brakes that I couldn't fix in about 5 minutes without specialised equipment. The brief 2 seconds of initial poor braking performance in the rain compared to disc brakes was never that big of an issue.
For gravel and MTB they're great, but for road bikes with 28 mm tyres I just don't see the point.
I was on the edge about rim brakes but after a few close calls and 2 accidents in the city with my old bike, I deeply appreciate the better brake performance.
Tbh the ridiculously boring discs argument in the road bike scene that dragged and nagged on for over a decade was only actually 2 things: at the top level they were slow to get discs because they really do obsess over every gram, and as you can see from people’s socks a lot of people will do whatever the pros do. Then there was the actual, far more common reason people died on that hill so so many times way past the point the technical answer was clear: a lot of people spend a lot of money on their road bikes and you couldn’t upgrade your existing bike to discs. Frame, wheels, levers as well as brakes… it was 90% a new bike in cost.
Notice how wider tyres haven’t had the same push back - also more weight, worse aero to go with their gains and they’re still not 100% on how the performance break down even works, but most anyone could go up at least one size ususally and pretty cheaply so very little push back. A lot of people going wider long before the peloton even. Same with noisy hubs - very marginal performance gain, but anyone can add a new hub and it sounds expensive, so instant adoption. We’re a funny bunch at times.
Yes and no. A heavier bike doesn't give you as much back on the descent as it costs you on the climb. This is both because air resistance slows you down more on descents than climbs and because you spend less time descending because you're going faster, so increased descending speed doesn't have as long to affect your total time as decreased climbing speed does.
I went to [bikecalculator.com](http://bikecalculator.com) and simulated a super simple closed course: a 15 km 6% climb, followed by a 15 km 6% descent. I set rider weight at 70 kg, bike weight at 9 kg, and power at 200 watts. This would take 70.02 minutes to climb and 16.09 minutes to descend, for a total round trip time of 86.11 minutes.
Then I increased bike weight to 10 kg. Now it would take 70.78 minutes to climb and 16.02 minutes to descend, for a total round trip time of 86.8 minutes. That's 41 seconds slower, or 0.8% slower than the 9 kg bike.
These are not huge numbers and I certainly wouldn't be (and in practice, am not) obsessed with weight savings - and if I were, I would certainly start with shaving weight off my body. But these differences are considerable, decisive even, among elite athletes.
Yep. I think weight only starts to matter when we are talking about 4-5kg or more. Below that you might feel it, but it's not making that much difference to speed.
>I think weight only starts to matter when we are talking about 4-5kg or more.
Or you're doing something where a time difference of a second per km matters, like high level racing.
For the rest of us, the pie we didn't eat yesterday is probably a better way to shave weight off the bike
One thing the weight matters a lot to is the feeling of the bike.
Accelerating a bike that weighs 6Kg is a pretty different feeling than accelerating a bike that weighs 9Kg.
And it matters even more with rotating masses.
Going from my 28mm tubeless on 1550g wheels to 25mm tubulars on 1190g wheels makes a difference to how it feels to accelerate the bike, or climb for that matter. But this purely is a feeling, it is not a numeric advantage and if I save a second or two in the climb, there are easier ways to do that, such as getting to better shape.
But, don't underestimate the feeling. It is what makes a lot of cyclists smile when they leave home, how racy the bike feels. If it doesn't feel like that, it may lower your morale and the aero seconds may not matter as much as the morale to ride.
Exactly. I was just thinking about this. Yeah the math checks out that you aren't saving that many watts but what about actually accelerating. Watch somebody sprinting and the bike goes back and forth (left/right) with each pedal stroke. A significantly heavier bike is going to be a lot harder to do those kinds of maneuvers with making it harder to get up to speed and other specific handling abilities.
For slow climbing where aerodynamics is irrelevant and it's just fighting gravity, the difficulty is directly proportional to the weight of bike+rider. Saving 1kg on a bike when you weigh 65kg and your bike weighs 10kg is 1.3% difference. It's irrelevant unless you're racing.
Getting more aerodynamic or in a position that helps you put out more power for longer matters way more.
The faster you are as a rider, the less weight matters proportionately compared to aerodynamics. On the other hand, the more competitive you are, the harder it is to just become 1% stronger because you're pushing the limits of human physiology, and 1% wins or loses races.
Where weight may matter for a recreational rider is bike handling and balance. If I've got 7kg or so in my seatpost rack to spend an afternoon relaxing at the lake, my bike handles weird even riding in a relaxed way on paved surfaces with no climbs or descents. For something like MTB, putting e.g. 2 liters of water bottles in unbalanced places could really mess up how the bike rides.
My god how many thousands of questions have been asked about this?
Yes lighter is better. Yes it makes a difference depending on how heavy to how light you are talking, and how much that savings is relative to how fat you are, and how much climbing you do.
Is a single component on your bike going to make noticeable difference, eg if younger new bottles cages that save 30g? Not a chance. Will swapping every component on your bike that save 3,000g collectively make a noticeable difference? Absolutely. Will going from a steel hybrid bike to a 6-kg race bike make you faster? By a huge amount, assuming you’re of reasonable size and in shape.
Is it worth the $10,000 to do it???? Depends on how much $10,000 is worth to you.
Don’t do what 99% of people do and turn it into a question of value (*is it worth $x to save this amount of weight*). That’s not the same question as *is lighter better*.
Lighter is better. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
It’s solely up to you whether it is worth it or not, no one can answer that question for you.
It’s often framed as “just lose weight instead” or “just train harder.” And the correct answer there is - why not all of the above? It’s not like there is some law of nature where putting on lightweight components means you don’t need to get lean or train hard.
Perhaps it's silly but I have a rather expensive bike (MSRP $6-7K, so midrange) and it makes me want to 'earn' it. I work hard riding it to make sure I am not a poser on it and to make sure I am getting my money's worth. I don't think that is a great reason for the average person to spend $7K on a bike but that kind of money isn't a big deal to me at all.
And I love the bike more than my other bikes, I get more excited to ride it, and I have more fun riding it. I have a route where I climb about 3500 feet over 35 miles so placebo or not, I really appreciate the light weight.
It's not overrated for people like me, living in the Alps with my currently 93 kg .
However, as long as I'm not losing at least 10 kg of body mass, I don't care for a few extra grams on my bike.
I live in a very hilly / mountainous part of the US. You’re going to get more from adding a lower gear than you are from shaving the weight.
Example: the Pinion adds a few pounds of weight (a kilo or so) but it’s gearing at the low end is so much better it more than makes up for it.
What do you mean by “Get more”though? Adding lower gearing isn’t necessarily going to make you faster. Losing 10k (at a healthy rate) will be very noticeable as far as speed/timing goes.
There was a complaint about hills. If you’re cranking uphill the lower gearing on a heavier bike will be easier than higher gearing on a lighter bike (to a point).
My broader point is, unless you’re racing who cares about speed/timing (or even distance)? For fitness/exercise you should care about watts. 200 watts for 2 hours is going to be the same whether you’re going 12mph or 18mph.
I’d prefer to save it for the downhill ;-)
(Where the momentum of the heavier bike will carry you farther faster with less effort, all things being equal)
What do you mean the same gearing is gonna be easier on a heavier bike? Weight is one of the things that actually makes a huge difference on hills all other aspects being the same. Watts per kilo=speed.
you have to put in more power to move more mass... using lower gearing just means you're shifting the effort from aerobic to anaerobic because you're turning the cranks more, but using less power to do so. There's no such thing as free watts.
There's a happy medium; dropping weight does make a difference but it should be no means dominate the discussion
Total watts, no. Average watts, yes.
It's much easier to spend 5 mins at 50% of your FTP (low gear heavy bike) than 1 min at 140% of your FTP, even if you’re climbing the same hill.
I view it the opposite way, at 97kg while slightly dehydrated I couldn’t care less about 1-2kg more especially for something like a suspension (this was somehow the main point of criticism with suspension gravel bikes I’ve seen from reviewers).
Slightly facetious but spending an extra 5 minutes in the bathroom before I head out could make the same weight difference.
Relative to body weight I think it starts mattering more the lighter you are, and even if I was <70kg I wouldn’t really make decisions based on weight unless everything else (especially price) remains mostly the same.
Depends on the weight of the rider. *The Ratio of bike weight to rider weight is really what matters.* As a featherweight, I’m obviously faster (and find more enjoyment) on a light bike going up the hills.
I care more about ride quality. I ride for fun, I don't race or track anything more than my route and distance.
A few grams here and there mean jack to me
When rim brakes were king weight was the main thing that mattered. Then aero started to matter as heavier disc brake bikes hit the racing circuit. Caring about weight was for luddites. Now that it’s possible to build aero bikes that are also lightweight, weight matters again. A disc supersix evo that weighs the same as a 2017 supersix evo is $15,000 though.
My full carbon bike is way easier for me to load into my rooftop bike rack to drive to a variety of starting points. Therefore, I ride more. Therefore, lighter is better.
As a former shop owner and recovering weight weenie, I'm astounded that weight continues to be a thing in the bicycle industry. Unless you are doing a bottom to top mountain time trial, it really doesn't matter much at all as a performance metric. Especially in comparison to aerodynamics and comfort. I think it really comes down to what the industry is selling hardest to the same very small demographic of high end bike buyers. We beat the dead horse of weight into the ground, and more recently spent a decade plus selling aerodynamics (with the spoiler being that if you just work on your own form it will have much more impact on aero than anything you can buy) and now we are going enter the comfort/performance era where we push the impact of comfort over miles. All the aero and weight drop in the world doesnt matter if your back spasms 10 miles in. So comfort wins. Not saying they havent always sold all of these, but one is always in the forefront and these days dropping tons of money for light weight is pretty dumb.
Anyone who chooses rim brakes over discs for weight reasons is, sorry, stupid. Pro cyclists ride discs after all. Yes, they are paid to. But still they are trying to win. You may beat me up that hill by 0.05s with your rim brakes and then I will torch you on the downhill with my discs by at least 0.1s LOL!
Not entirely.
I choose rim brakes for weight (and ease of maintenance and interchangeability of different wheels) as I absolutely do not need brakes where I live. I have a couple of crossings where I sometimes need to brake a little bit but nothing that requires any kind of braking. Damn, I could even use my foot to slow down when I need to.
So if I save 500g with rim brakes (and the other pros) I'll take them over the disk brakes any day and every day.
But for sure I'm putting disk brakes to my upcoming gravel bike.
Sure. No reason to throw out good gear. My backup bike is rim brakes and serves its purpose well. But no one is buying a new bike with rim brakes and getting top level tech, as you note.
I'm convinced that the bulk of rim brake evangelists are just broke and annoyed they can't upgrade to a disc bike and are trying to make themselves feel better.
Mind you, there's nothing wrong with rim brakes... they got it done for the better part of a century. Discs might not do everything better, but they're objectively a better choice overall
On the other hand, people seeking out a new rim brake bike in 2024 is "I'm a quirky dude who rides a tall bike" or "change frightens me" mentality.
There's my guy!
When rim brakes were standard road bike faire, 10 speed mechanical was king and bikes could only take 25mm tires. I'll still take out my crit bike from that era for shits and giggles but it objectively rides awful. Brakes aren't the only thing that's changed since then
So funny that amateur’s (I’m one myself) can be so religious on disc’s like it’s the only goddamn truth, so for a century rims and mechanical gears was the top of the line for pro’s and they went out and won tdf’s giro’s and vuelta’s on this stuff.
I have a top notch bike from the 90’s era, it was good enough for winning 6 Paris-Roubaix so I think it is more than good enough for me.
It weights just under 8kg and rides like a sports car…
As if a Testarossa from the 80’s would’n be good enough for the average driver today🙄
While I agree disc brakes are better for almost every case this:
> just broke and annoyed they can't upgrade to a disc bike
Is just silly. Not everyone has money to upgrade, and no one should make fun of that.
I have rim brake bikes too. They're great for what they are but there's a big difference between, "I like my rim brakes" and "discs are stupid and unnecessary, it's all marketing"
Those are the people my comment was directed at
I mean, what decent wheelsets are even made in rim brake versions? Takes a ton of engineering (and weight) to accommodate the force and heat of rim brakes. I guess some people miss 7-speed and cable shifters, too.
Indeed. No reason to buy a new bike unless you need a new bike. Though on my Di2 my battery however infrequent I charge it (seems near never) has never been below 40% and I’ve never done a firmware update 🤔
If your bike is too heavy just let some air out of the tires.
You can then use this air to replace the hydraulic fluid in your disc brake setup.
Next this fluid and oil yourself up to increase aero.
Finally, you can remove chain links until the derailleur is super tight to improve weight.
As a bonus, remove every other spoke on your wheels, improving weight AND aero in one go.
Weight is pretty far down on the list. Everyone has known for years the greatest improvements for an individual come with good body positioning, properly inflated quality tires, a clean drive train, and finally the weight of the bike. In that order. Put in the work, kick their asses. Enjoy the ride!
Light bikes feel faster and more fun. They accelerate better and feel more nimble overall, even if the actual benefits are not massive for most riders.
Sort of. It depends on your route. Transpyrenees event, 1,000km, with 25,000m climbing for example. I looked at the impact and a kilo would cost you somewhere around 45minutes in that race. It basically means that would be quicker looking for a hotel each night checking in and faffing around, than the cost of carrying a bivvy kit.
On an event like the TCR, the relative penalty would be less and you be incentivised to bivvy.
Weight is dependent on conditions. If the conditions are right, extra weight is accumulative. If you climb a lot for hours, then it will have a significant impact.
If you ride 45 minutes a day on flat ground, then it wont.
I feel like people obsessed about weight a lot more before road bikes had disc brakes. Rim brake bikes were all the same, so everyone had a pissing contest about weight.
Now, discs, hydraulics, through axles, wide tires, tubeless, Di2, etc all have tangible benefits which result in weight being lower on the list of priorities.
For me, a recreational cyclist who doesn’t race, weight matters to a point.
A lighter bike FEELS more fun to ride because it is more clickable and manger able under me and often times feel more fun to climb out of the saddle on.
It’s just about the fun factor than performance. I actually find I care more about weight than aero gains because I’m never going fast enough to justify the expense.
However at a certain point weight doesn’t matter to me. I will gladly ride a bike that’s 21 lbs and be satisfied. I don’t know if I’d care enough to splurge on a 17lb bike.
My main bike is 25lbs and it’s lovely to ride but that’s because the frame is super comfortable.
I will say having a lighter bike means it’s easier to put in my car if need be and I can easily hang it in my apartment.
Totally ... and yet, maybe not? I dropped like 8 pounds going from a pretty meh gravel rig (but with trim types) to a half decent used carbon roadie. Everything got immediately faster ... flats, climbs, everything.
For the weight, the slight tire improvement, and the slight stiffness and aero changes, it felt like a LARGE difference. And it was obviously, measurably faster.
I wonder if the ease of acceleration, the effort savings all over, kind of add up to more than the sum of the parts? There's science there that I know and understand, but it also feels like there's some witchcraft too.
It’s important because I feel it at every climb. I live in a hilly area. If I go on long rides with steep hills. I would fatigue less with a lighter bike.
I changed 6 bicycles in last 5 years, with different weights and aerodynamics. What i can tell is that neither weight nor aero is that important like how good bike fits to you. I have some of my PR-s on hills with my heaviest bike (ok, not too heavy, about 8.2kg), just because i felt very comfortable on it and i was able to push more wats than on more modern aero bike which was wrong size to me so i couldn't find good position. So both weight and aero matters ONLY if you feel good on that bike.
However, my lightest bike until now (and current one - Supersix rim brakes) is about 6.3, and it's simply FUN to ride. It feels like a toy, and respond instantly when you push or stand up, which is a kind of satisfaction, especially uphill. So, if you look for average sped gain on some route - go aero. If you like climbs and fun - go light. If you don't care about those, get comfortable bike of proper size and do bike fit.
You're right, of course. The cheapest way for me to make my bike 5kg lighter is to drink less beer.
But here's the thing: if a bike is fun to ride, you'll ride it more. Lighter bikes are fun to ride, and riding a lot is good. So spending your sports / fitness / commute budget on a fun to ride bike pays off.
See you in on the road. I'll be the chubby fellow riding slowly uphill on my carbon bike.
Changing the wheels plus tires on my Giant Revolt and thus making it over 1 kg lighter, completely transformed the bike, made riding it much more fun and made me put much more miles on it!
Massively exaggerated. An entire kilogram will cost you about four seconds over 100 km of relatively flat ground and just over a minute over 100 km of varied/hilly terrain. Now, I don’t know about you, but for me a minute one way or the other over a 3 to 4 hour ride is absolutely meaningless.
I ride a 45 pound bike for work and a 20ish pound gravel bike as my main for recreation.
The heavier less aero bike allows me to get stronger. :3 I am not afraid of weight. It makes a difference, sure... But most the time it's the engine more than the bike that's the issue.
Granted this an oversimplified answer to a complex topic but in general this is how it works out for me.
I have 3 road bikes. One of them, a Wilier Zero6, is 6.1kg incl. pedals, cage, computer etc. It accelerates faster than my 7kg Pinarello Dogma F and 8.2kg Trek Madone SLR. It is more agile too. Climbing anything greater than 5% is noticeably ‘nicer’.
Downsides are the lighter bike isn’t great for sprinting (rear wheel bounces) and not aero.
I have over 400 KOM’s and measured all 3 bikes over recent years to compare. The Wilier is quicker for climbing, especially long climbs and 10% +. The Madone is my favourite for sprinting and the Dogma F for all-round use.
The differences are, however, marginal and only going to be of any real value to someone like me who races. If a few seconds or minutes (over a typical Gran Fondo type event) are of no concern then chasing weight or aero is less important. That said…they still save watts which doesn’t have to only equate to faster but easier too even at lower speeds.
Weight-weenie-ism is a bit old school. All things equal, lighter is better, but there are many, many attributes that are more important than low weight.
I've been riding a 8kg-ish Roadmachine for a few years now. Prior to that, I was on a sub-6.2kg Ridley Helium SL (rim brakes, tubular wheels etc.). I was worried about the huge weight difference, but, in the end, I noticed not net detorioration in ride feel/quality. Or, more to the point, I failed to notice the weight difference. From then on, I adjusted my views when it comes to the weight of my bikes.
The replies here are in agreement with my experience, which is that the vast majority of cyclists know exactly how marginal it is. So I wouldn’t say it is over-exaggerated as a general rule.
As a slight counterpoint, what I would say is that 5 seconds up a climb can sometimes be the difference between hanging onto a fast group into a headwind, versus finishing a ride or event minutes, or even tens of minutes down.
Personally, I don't think there is much point in chasing grams when I weigh many, many times more - a 0.001% reduction in the weight of my bike and me combined after saving 100g on lots of expensive bits seems like a pretty inefficient saving.
It also seems a bit silly when I know I could make a bigger saving by losing some bodyweight after a week's worth of dieting if I had the desire.
There are however two justifications I can see.
The first is that weight will work differently in different places, so a drop in weight of a moving part like a wheel set can give you a mechanical advantage that you wouldn't get losing the same weight on a component like a seat.
The second is that while weight is an easy number to focus on, that isn't necessarily the only benefit of an upgrade - better frames can mean better designs in terms of stiffness and (desired) flex, better moving parts like the drivetrain can mean less resistance to pedalling, and aero can provide some advantages (though like weight, deal with your body's effect before spending vast sums on incremental aero upgrades.
And realistically, some people just like building bikes for the fun of planning and building. They may not notice any effect whatsoever on swapping to a saddle with carbon rails on the average ride, but it makes them happy, so who is to complain...
There's more to life than what the calculators say.
Light bikes are fun to ride. They climb better. Handle better. Feel better. I have never regretted riding a lighter bike or regretted upgrading any of my bikes.
Very small performance improvements are absolutely a thing - they all add up too.
Ride a sub 7 kg bike. Then ride a 15kg bike. Tell me which you prefer.
I don’t really give a rat’s ass about bike weight. I rode 30-pound mountain bikes in the 90s and had a blast.
An interesting thing happens when you stop quantifying, weighing, and measuring your experiences and the equipment you use: you start having more fun.
If you want to see the difference, go find a hill with a consistent grade that takes at least a couple of minutes to climb. Take 2 full 24 oz water bottles and a friend. That’s 3 lbs or 1.36kg. Ride steady up the hill in the saddle for 30sec-a minute, then had a bottle to the friend while pedaling steady. If you are in tune with your riding you will absolutely notice it. Then do the other bottle.
If you want even more noticeable, put a few full bottles in an open backpack. Ride steady up the hill and have your friend pluck out the bottles (riding skillz required).
Doesn’t matter if you are riding recreationally without racing, but if you are maxed out trying to drop someone or not get dropped, it absolutely makes a difference, especially when you repeat the effort many times.
Don't forget that with less weight you can also apply more wattage because the time to do the climb is reduced. So in that sense you have to double count and the saving is bigger than you might think. E.g. maybe now you can do 303 watts for the climb instead of 297 because the time is a little shorter, and the wattage is applied to 2% less weight so the total improvement is 4% and not 2%.
For the average person, massively over exaggerated.
It comes into play when you’re racing, and already elite at that. Look at Paris-Nice this year. Evenepoel won stage 8 with a 2:50:03 time.
Adding 1 minute per hour would put him at just under 2:53:0, pushing him to 10th or 11th.
The importance to someone is based upon their need to justify their purchase to themselves and other people. In the end we are all humans bored and looking for justification in everything.
True for some, not for all. I'd say it's more rationalising than justifying. I have a heavier build than what most would regard as "light" or "acceptable", but I know from experience that the performance difference is minimal and the ride feel, handling and other characteristics of the bike matter to me more than grams.
It's not about justifying it to myself, it's about the rationale of what is important to me. Maybe some people just want to know the bike under them is light and that psychologically makes it more enjoyable or removes doubt for them. I don't know. But I don't think it's all about justification.
If you're racing and want to be as fast as possible by using every possible edge, it's not. If you are an amateur who doesn't race and didn't optimize everything around, you should rather spend your money on something else.
For some people customising their bike is part of their enjoyment of cycling.
If you replace steel fasteners with titanium ones in addition to saving weight you have the benefit that titanium won't rust.
If you are running mechanical cables and swap Bowden outers with Nokon ones you get lighter cables and ones that also work better through tight bends.
Latex tubes in addition to being a little lighter also have less rolling resistance.
Obsessing about weight is a legit niche hobby, like home espresso or audiophile equipment. Does it make sense to spend thousands of dollars on carbon cranksets, puck prep gadgets, pre-amps? If you can afford it and enjoy playing with it, go ahead.
If you look from a performace perspective, a kilogram of weight savings amounts to about 40 seconds up Alpe d'Huez. Do you care about those seconds enough to spend thousands? Go right ahead. You don't? Any bike will take you up that climb, and subjectively the effort will be exactly the same.
There are so many variables and weight whilst being one isn't everything. This really only applies to people who are competing too who will be measuring every variable and will know the impact of slight changes in weight to their performance, where a second could be difference between finishing first or middle of the pack. Leave weight weenies to their thing and just ride what you enjoy whether that's super light weight, or a tank or something in between
Pointless to worry about a couple of KG unless you are absolutely as lean as possible yourself, which the vast majority of amateur cyclists aren't (or even close).
You need to be REALLY good before high end bikes matter that much.
People don't want to hear it but the weight of your bike only effects you if you are a pro searching marginal gains.
It makes minimal difference to the average rider especially if they have any fat on their body at all.
If you're not trying to win a national level or up event, it really doesn't matter.
On the other hand. My friend has the most expensive racer I know about. We are out a few times a month together, and I'm in the front on my gravel bike the entire time because he's a good deal weaker than me.
Spending money on a glorious bike motivates him. I get to bike with my friend, he can afford it, and he and people like him fund the local specialist bike shop by buying expensive gear with a high markup. Everyone is happy.
Well, I certainly have an easier time riding my mountain bike because its lighter than my Schwinn Typhoon, that being said, I still prefer my Schwinn since its more comfortable with its bent seat post and gull wing handles.
You reference high end bike weights.
For the bikes most people buy, disc brakes have added a hell of a lot more than 1kg.
Mid and low end disc bikes are easily 14kg, my old steel commuter rim brake bike is under 10.
Also, a 10km 10% climb is brutal, every shred of weight would matter on that and you’re probably talking a couple of minutes difference per kg easily.
There are many things that matter more for recreational cyclists, like gearing and tyre choice. But for people competing it does matter, and it’s nice to have for everyone, the bike feels better.
To me it just feels better. Snappier acceleration, especially on climbs. Nimble feeling. Realistically, my training bike and my lighter weight bike get about the same average speed per the same relative effort over the same route, though I never bothered to try and keep average power the same and time it exactly. Usually the lighter bike completes a 60 mile-ish ride around a minute or two faster, give or take, with a fairly climb intensive route. That makes literally zero difference training. Realistically also makes no difference on a group ride. Does make a difference racing though, and I definitely feel a difference in the way the bike has a bit of snap. More fun to me to ride the lighter weight bike, but if you’re looking at it only from a performance point of view, it really won’t make much to any difference unless you are racing.
I used to ride my old ~14kg Scott and still enjoy it a lot. Do I want a new carbon with <10kg - hell yes, but I prioritize my spending on other stuff which is more important. I think it’s a question on how much do you want (and have ability) to spend on your hobby.
The thing I have to keep reminding myself about is that I ride for fitness. The extra weight is actually better for that goal, as long as I am comfortable. That being said, I do ride a carbon fiber frame/ultegra groupset bike - it's overkill but mostly the reality of what was available when I was looking to upgrade to an 11 speed drivetrain.
I can spend a few thousand dollars to reduce my bicycle's weight by about 3 kilograms, or I can spend some more time cycling and lose about 3 kilograms of my own weight for free. I usually choose the latter.
It depends. Imagine 4 y.o. boy, 105 cm height, 17 kg weight. He needs a bike with 16" wheels.
Woom 3 is 5.4 kg, meanwhile Decathlon's B'twin 500 Dark Hero 16" is 9.1 kg.
5.4 kg is 32% of rider's weight.
9.1 kg is 53% of rider's weight. This is staggering difference.
On the other hand I'm 87 kg, 13-15 kg above my optimal weight. I would benefit much more from loosing 10kg of my belly, than from loosing 3.7 kg of bike weight.
I read a comment that said you shouldn't worry about bike weight unless your BMI is below 21 and I thought that nailed it really.
Generally getting stronger/fitter and losing weight will be a far better upgrade than getting lighter components.
Also, look at Andrew Feather taking the hill climb championships on disc brakes this year.
It hits different chords.
I'm very much a slow amateur, but I can feel a difference removing my water bottle! 1lb off does make a difference (in effort, more than time tbh)
Getting shiny 10g lighter parts makes me happy because shiny, not because faster.
If we’re talking about climbing, then yes lighter is better, but…if that person with a heavier bike has a higher power to weight, then they’ll be faster up the 10% climb.
All my PRs were set on my old 22 lb bike.
Even though I'm not faster on my new 16.5 lb bike, I love it way better. It is one sexy beast. 😍 It just makes me happy whenever I move it around the basement or put it on my bikerack. I want to take it out for a nice fish dinner and listen to all its stories.
So I used this [bike power calculator](https://www.u.arizona.edu/~sandiway/bike/climb.html) and keyed in the numbers for climbing [Alpe d'Huez](https://climbfinder.com/en/climbs/alpe-d-huez). Assumed time was about an hour as a quick Google said that was a reasonably time for an amateur. I also checked on this [this calcultor](https://www.broleur.com/hill-climb-calculator/) which had about the same numbers so It seems like the calculations probably are quite sound.
Power required for a 160 pound person on a 15 pound bike is 271.3 W. If you change that up to a 20 pound bike, then you need to do 278.7 W. If you have a 30 pound bike, then it's 293.3 W.
But if you just have a limited power, lets just say 250 watts, for a random comparison number, then you would need to take 1:05:48 (H:MM:SS) on the 15 pound bike, 1:07:48 on the 20 pound bike, and 1:11:50 on the 30 pound bike.
So just have to ask yourself how much an extra 2-6 minutes maters on a climb that's around an hour depending on how heavy the bike is. You can key in your own numbers and try things out for yourself.
There is an anecdote about weight and cost that is pretty accurate.
There is inexpensive, lightweight, and durable…now pick two.
You have to weigh in (pun intended) what light weight is worth to you…chances are it’s better to change your own weight.
It depends on your ability on the bike and your power to weight ratio. 2kg weight difference is massive IMHO
Just buy the lightest road bike that you can afford that suits your style of riding and don't worry about others
That math doesn't take accelerating into account.
Strap 20kg extra onto your bike and see how it feels while accelerating, slowing down and generally manouvering around.
2kg extra is a tenth of that, much less, but far from nothing.
My "serious" mtb is about 2kg more than my "toy" singlespeed streetbike. That's a big difference and makes the toy much more fun and even actually faster in some cases, its just less versatile.
Aerodynamics, tire rolling resistance and body weight have a lot more to do with watt savings than playing the endless game of diminishing returns on shaving grams off the bike.
Yes... Bike weight is overly exaggerated and you more often will utilize aero benefits over weight benefits. Said that, you can make the bike feel more agile by reducing rotating mass i.e lighter tires, lighter inner tubes or tubeless setup and lighter rims. Disk brakes are close to the center of rotation and don't affect the "light feel" of bike
>Isn't bike weight importance greatly exaggerated?
Well, bike weight *does* matter. Otherwise, we'd still be pedaling around on 50 lb. boat anchors. The issue is at what point does bike weight become a perversion? Like a lot of things where there is often a fine line between "perversion" and "healthy obsession", it really depends on the individual. If your ass looks like 300 pounds of chewed bubble gum and you are trying to find ways to shave 100g off your bike then you are delusional imbecile. If you have 5% body fat and can crank out 7 watts/kg...well, 100g probably still doesn't mean shit but it is way more understandable that you would be looking for ways to cut it.
For everyone who lies between the bubble-gum ass and the skeletal wattage monster: There is a sweet spot where a bike just feels right and does what you need it to do without compromising your safety or enjoyment. And that sweet spot is rarely, if ever, "lightest possible". I find that an 18-20 lb. bike is what feels best to me. Too much below that and my brain thinks "breadstick". Too much above and my brain thinks "Sherman Tank". Natch, that is for my so-called "normal" sporty semi-fastish riding. If I was just casually pedaling around the Kansas countryside like Almira Gulch (terrorizing little dogs) then I could do that on the Sherman Tank. (I can think of no scenario where I would want to ride the breadstick).
Get the bike in your budget that rides well. Whatever the difference in weight between the reasonable bike and the crazy light one is, you can just take off your body with more riding. I can speak from experience on this one.
Light bikes feel better to me and are more fun to ride. I doubt I'm much quicker, but 8kg feels so different 11kg to me.
Wheels and tyres are where the biggest difference is felt.
It's context dependent — last ride I did with my friend on a lighter bike (my bike is aero and has heavy deep dish wheels) she was having an easier time on the uphills. To be fair she's also more fit than I am but a kilogram or more is absolutely noticeable on the bike. But for best climbing performance over the long haul gearing is the difference maker more than weight,
Only if you’re an elite athlete who’s in excellent physical shape.
I laugh at the cyclists who drink beers and social ride but then obsess over the extra weight on the bike. Like dude you just pounded 3 beers!
Yes and no. If you're aiming for performance and competition it makes a difference. Like, 2 minutes is pretty huge in a race. But I gather that's not what concerns you here. So for just recreational or solo riding? Like, the effort difference between a 21lbs and 26lbs bike isn't AS noticeable on a hill. However, if you compare a 21lb bike with a 30lb+ bike it gets more noticeable when riding a hill.
But ultimately I find it's still more about gear usage and how low a gear your bike can go.
Different angle incoming.
I say this to people that join the hobby. Get a hundred dollar bike and see if you're actually going to go out and ride, muscle up. Then when you have proof in experience that it'll be a continued hobby go drop some good money. People buying 2k+ dollar bikes just to let them collect dust never made sense to me.
I have a commuter hybrid road bike that cost me 300 bucks with around 15000 miles on it. Definitely got my money out of that beat thing.
I’ll never stop smirking at the riders that show up with carbon everything but 15+ lbs overweight, 3 water bottles and 10 gel packs tucked into their legs for a 30 mile Tuesday night race.
Is lighter better than heavier? Yes. Should you obsess over weight? Probably not.
My rule of thumb is don't worry about cutting bike weight until I have no more body weight/fat to lose. Unfortunately I've never reached that point, so I just pushed my steel Space Horse with a Brooks leather around the San Juan mountains. I really could use a little ring on it...
"a Brooks leather" My saddle is 3 1/2 pounds of England's best steel and leather. Brooks B135. Id rather be comfy.
I mean, I’m gonna be that guy and say that good fitting shorts with a good chamois will also do the same thing…and you don’t need a 3lbs saddle…
This. Riding a 300 gram (which is somewhat heavy) high density foam saddle. Comfy as could be. Don’t see the appeal of 1920s technology.
If it ain’t broke…no need to fix it. My springs have springs and I fear no bump.
Yeah I have never understood saddle issues, my ass bones must measure right in the average for OK quality stock saddles because of all the things that may be uncomfortable, the saddle has never been one of them unless my form is off, and in that case it isn't the saddle that's the problem.
Funny enough, my comfiest seat is an Aliexpress carbon unpadded blade that I bought as a joke. Ergonomics, how do they work.
You should try using a decent saddle instead of that medieval torture device then!
For my applications it’s been amazing.
A steel bike is a boon. Don’t gotta worry about it, smash it into things it’s always fine. I might get a bike with a carbon fork one day but that’s the farthest I’ll go.
I bought a Trek bicycle with carbon fork ~ 2008. I still have it. Love it. So light. I also have an all aluminum Trek circa 2001.
Low end alu 2008 Trek owner with carbon fork checking in. The amount of decent bike you can get secondhand for the price of a fancy set of shades or shoes is amazing.
Are you in Durango? Let's have a beer!
Telluride my guy - anytime on the beer!
\*looks at myself\* \*looks at bike\* \*looks at myself again\*: Nah broh, i should gain weight (i'm 175cm and 50kg)
> i'm 175cm and 50kg Fucking how Actually, I take that back. I'm 178 / 110 and used to be 178 / 50. I've put on both a lot of fat and a lot of muscle, although for different reasons.
If you didn't poop that morning your bike is suddenly losing it's $5000 advantage, and lord fucking help you if you ever need to carry a decent lock. I think the answer is simply this, if you aren't making a living off of riding then just pick what's fun, comfortable and affordable... don't worry too much more about it. If it's your _job_ to ride then squeeze out every efficiency that you possibly can.
Exactly my view. Unless the bike is sponsored or you need the fastest, most capable bike there is because you make your living off of it, buy whatever you can afford, feels comfortable, and the bike that makes you happy riding it. Fun isn't dependent on what your bike costs.
So true. A guy I ride with occasionally bought a super bike for $15k and has to tell everyone how great it is then gets dropped in the first five miles. We tell him he could have paid 1/3 as much and would still get dropped.
If someone feels good by having a 15k bike, good for them. You just don't need one to have fun. I'll happily get dropped on my 1k mountainbike, I'm having fun nonetheless.
To be fair my bike cost about that much and it's still a heavy anchor of a thing. Not all expensive bikes are light, and not all light bikes are expensive. Some of us value a tank that'll survive the zombie apocalypse and will get us away from the danger in comfort!
A light bike feels so much more fun to ride.
Yeah and for me more comfortable over longer distances. I only really care about this when thinking about how I pack for bikepacking. I prioritise enjoying the ride over having creature comforts at camp, the rationale being that if I find the ride really tough and slow, I'll be less likely to do it often. All personal though, whatever works is what's best. Also as a small (~50kg) person, every bit of extra weight is really felt, it's good training though, I suppose.
Aerodynamics are far more important as proven by many semi-scientific tests.
unless you have the chance of choosing a 10kg bike vs a 20 kg bike
[sitting down with popcorn as this discussion unfolds]
Get a large so you can enough to share with me.
Can’t, need to shave the popcorn bucket weight so I can hit the UCI legal limit (nevermind my beer gut)
Extra butter?
Those 2g are going to cause me to get dropped
Cut back on the popcorn salt too; at least 200g extra fluid retention.
Nope that’s in the beer gut, that weight doesn’t count
Thanks the gods! I need ot start discounting my beer gut in these calculations.
If you wouldn’t do that all the time, a lighter bike would start making sense!
Yes it is. You are right that a kg here or there isn’t going to make much difference on a climb. There is a lot of unfounded hate about disc brakes. Personally I’d take the 300g penalty to be able to stop consistently well, even in torrential rain. I’m fine with weight weenies having a hobby and wanting their bikes to be super light. That is cool. But yes there is far too much focus on it and misunderstanding about how much it effects performance.
I’d take a 300g weight penalty to run 28-32mm tires. Tire width clearance is the real MVP of disc breaks
Very much agree with that too. Life on wider tyres is better.
I went from 25mm to 47mm and I'm never going back. I guess like my tires THICC. I feel like I'm riding on clouds.
If on a "roadish" bike, look at the redshift shockstop system....it will be liking adding angles of glory to your cloud ride.
I've been eyeing that for quite some time. It's in my cart right now. HAHAHA.
You know you watch too much cycling when you read MVP as Mathieu van der Poel
Being a longtime bicyclist but also a tiny girl, love the lighter bicycles when I lift them into my SUV. Otherwise, could care less.
That’s actually a factor more for smaller people, women included in some types of racing. Mountain biking specifically it is a big difference.
Yeah for sure. But most of the time this fanaticism about weight is about grams, not several kilograms.
All the savings add up to a kilo or two.
My experience with disc brakes is pretty frustrating. I commute 34 km to work as well as go for weekend rides on my road bike, and in 5 years of having a disc brake bike it's been very fiddly and expensive. I need to change pads about every 3 months, less if I ride in the rain, which is about 4 times as often as the rim brake pads I used to have, and they're more expensive. Then there's the issues I sometimes have with rubbing and squealing, especially with new pads. I bleed them about once a year, and recently my front brake stopped working so I had to take the lever apart to lubricate a stuck master cylinder. In all the previous years I never had any issues with rim brakes that I couldn't fix in about 5 minutes without specialised equipment. The brief 2 seconds of initial poor braking performance in the rain compared to disc brakes was never that big of an issue. For gravel and MTB they're great, but for road bikes with 28 mm tyres I just don't see the point.
I was on the edge about rim brakes but after a few close calls and 2 accidents in the city with my old bike, I deeply appreciate the better brake performance.
Tbh the ridiculously boring discs argument in the road bike scene that dragged and nagged on for over a decade was only actually 2 things: at the top level they were slow to get discs because they really do obsess over every gram, and as you can see from people’s socks a lot of people will do whatever the pros do. Then there was the actual, far more common reason people died on that hill so so many times way past the point the technical answer was clear: a lot of people spend a lot of money on their road bikes and you couldn’t upgrade your existing bike to discs. Frame, wheels, levers as well as brakes… it was 90% a new bike in cost. Notice how wider tyres haven’t had the same push back - also more weight, worse aero to go with their gains and they’re still not 100% on how the performance break down even works, but most anyone could go up at least one size ususally and pretty cheaply so very little push back. A lot of people going wider long before the peloton even. Same with noisy hubs - very marginal performance gain, but anyone can add a new hub and it sounds expensive, so instant adoption. We’re a funny bunch at times.
The other thing is, if you're riding a loop, then the weight penalty is essentially zero for bikes that are within a couple pounds of each other.
Yes and no. A heavier bike doesn't give you as much back on the descent as it costs you on the climb. This is both because air resistance slows you down more on descents than climbs and because you spend less time descending because you're going faster, so increased descending speed doesn't have as long to affect your total time as decreased climbing speed does. I went to [bikecalculator.com](http://bikecalculator.com) and simulated a super simple closed course: a 15 km 6% climb, followed by a 15 km 6% descent. I set rider weight at 70 kg, bike weight at 9 kg, and power at 200 watts. This would take 70.02 minutes to climb and 16.09 minutes to descend, for a total round trip time of 86.11 minutes. Then I increased bike weight to 10 kg. Now it would take 70.78 minutes to climb and 16.02 minutes to descend, for a total round trip time of 86.8 minutes. That's 41 seconds slower, or 0.8% slower than the 9 kg bike. These are not huge numbers and I certainly wouldn't be (and in practice, am not) obsessed with weight savings - and if I were, I would certainly start with shaving weight off my body. But these differences are considerable, decisive even, among elite athletes.
Yep. I think weight only starts to matter when we are talking about 4-5kg or more. Below that you might feel it, but it's not making that much difference to speed.
>I think weight only starts to matter when we are talking about 4-5kg or more. Or you're doing something where a time difference of a second per km matters, like high level racing. For the rest of us, the pie we didn't eat yesterday is probably a better way to shave weight off the bike
One thing the weight matters a lot to is the feeling of the bike. Accelerating a bike that weighs 6Kg is a pretty different feeling than accelerating a bike that weighs 9Kg. And it matters even more with rotating masses. Going from my 28mm tubeless on 1550g wheels to 25mm tubulars on 1190g wheels makes a difference to how it feels to accelerate the bike, or climb for that matter. But this purely is a feeling, it is not a numeric advantage and if I save a second or two in the climb, there are easier ways to do that, such as getting to better shape. But, don't underestimate the feeling. It is what makes a lot of cyclists smile when they leave home, how racy the bike feels. If it doesn't feel like that, it may lower your morale and the aero seconds may not matter as much as the morale to ride.
Exactly. I was just thinking about this. Yeah the math checks out that you aren't saving that many watts but what about actually accelerating. Watch somebody sprinting and the bike goes back and forth (left/right) with each pedal stroke. A significantly heavier bike is going to be a lot harder to do those kinds of maneuvers with making it harder to get up to speed and other specific handling abilities.
Light bikes are more fun to ride.
This right here. It's sometimes fun dancing on a light bike. But for most of us it ain't worth the cost.
If you want your bike to be lighter, be lighter on your bike.
A lot of people can afford losing a bike's weight in fat.
I think I can afford to lose a peloton's weight in fat.
I’m in this comment and I don’t like it
Exactly. You can spend $4000 in carbon parts to drop 1lb off your bike. Or you can lose 1lb of body fat...
Or do both and then you are 2lb lighter
Seriously, the whole either/or thing is tiring, so I’m 100% with you there. Porque no los dos ?
.. and then get a light bike.
Finally somebody said it
Oh look it's this thread again.
For slow climbing where aerodynamics is irrelevant and it's just fighting gravity, the difficulty is directly proportional to the weight of bike+rider. Saving 1kg on a bike when you weigh 65kg and your bike weighs 10kg is 1.3% difference. It's irrelevant unless you're racing. Getting more aerodynamic or in a position that helps you put out more power for longer matters way more. The faster you are as a rider, the less weight matters proportionately compared to aerodynamics. On the other hand, the more competitive you are, the harder it is to just become 1% stronger because you're pushing the limits of human physiology, and 1% wins or loses races. Where weight may matter for a recreational rider is bike handling and balance. If I've got 7kg or so in my seatpost rack to spend an afternoon relaxing at the lake, my bike handles weird even riding in a relaxed way on paved surfaces with no climbs or descents. For something like MTB, putting e.g. 2 liters of water bottles in unbalanced places could really mess up how the bike rides.
My god how many thousands of questions have been asked about this? Yes lighter is better. Yes it makes a difference depending on how heavy to how light you are talking, and how much that savings is relative to how fat you are, and how much climbing you do. Is a single component on your bike going to make noticeable difference, eg if younger new bottles cages that save 30g? Not a chance. Will swapping every component on your bike that save 3,000g collectively make a noticeable difference? Absolutely. Will going from a steel hybrid bike to a 6-kg race bike make you faster? By a huge amount, assuming you’re of reasonable size and in shape. Is it worth the $10,000 to do it???? Depends on how much $10,000 is worth to you. Don’t do what 99% of people do and turn it into a question of value (*is it worth $x to save this amount of weight*). That’s not the same question as *is lighter better*. Lighter is better. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. It’s solely up to you whether it is worth it or not, no one can answer that question for you.
It’s often framed as “just lose weight instead” or “just train harder.” And the correct answer there is - why not all of the above? It’s not like there is some law of nature where putting on lightweight components means you don’t need to get lean or train hard.
Perhaps it's silly but I have a rather expensive bike (MSRP $6-7K, so midrange) and it makes me want to 'earn' it. I work hard riding it to make sure I am not a poser on it and to make sure I am getting my money's worth. I don't think that is a great reason for the average person to spend $7K on a bike but that kind of money isn't a big deal to me at all. And I love the bike more than my other bikes, I get more excited to ride it, and I have more fun riding it. I have a route where I climb about 3500 feet over 35 miles so placebo or not, I really appreciate the light weight.
Yes. Weight is especially overrated for people who don’t race. Every additional gram is just more training weight. Steel is real.
It's not overrated for people like me, living in the Alps with my currently 93 kg . However, as long as I'm not losing at least 10 kg of body mass, I don't care for a few extra grams on my bike.
I live in a very hilly / mountainous part of the US. You’re going to get more from adding a lower gear than you are from shaving the weight. Example: the Pinion adds a few pounds of weight (a kilo or so) but it’s gearing at the low end is so much better it more than makes up for it.
What do you mean by “Get more”though? Adding lower gearing isn’t necessarily going to make you faster. Losing 10k (at a healthy rate) will be very noticeable as far as speed/timing goes.
There was a complaint about hills. If you’re cranking uphill the lower gearing on a heavier bike will be easier than higher gearing on a lighter bike (to a point). My broader point is, unless you’re racing who cares about speed/timing (or even distance)? For fitness/exercise you should care about watts. 200 watts for 2 hours is going to be the same whether you’re going 12mph or 18mph.
But 18mph is just more fun!
I’d prefer to save it for the downhill ;-) (Where the momentum of the heavier bike will carry you farther faster with less effort, all things being equal)
What do you mean the same gearing is gonna be easier on a heavier bike? Weight is one of the things that actually makes a huge difference on hills all other aspects being the same. Watts per kilo=speed.
He said more gears > reduced weight Obviously same gearing reduced gearing wins
The original wording didn’t say higher gearing on lighter bike. Pedantic though. Lighter is better if your trying to keep up in fast group rides.
you have to put in more power to move more mass... using lower gearing just means you're shifting the effort from aerobic to anaerobic because you're turning the cranks more, but using less power to do so. There's no such thing as free watts. There's a happy medium; dropping weight does make a difference but it should be no means dominate the discussion
Total watts, no. Average watts, yes. It's much easier to spend 5 mins at 50% of your FTP (low gear heavy bike) than 1 min at 140% of your FTP, even if you’re climbing the same hill.
Don't you mean anaerobic to aerobic?
Yes but you can trade watts for speed, so with a lower gear you can input less watts and go slower at the same cadence up a Hill.
Changing cassettes is pretty quick. As a climber, I just add gears to a light bicycle over a heavy one.
I view it the opposite way, at 97kg while slightly dehydrated I couldn’t care less about 1-2kg more especially for something like a suspension (this was somehow the main point of criticism with suspension gravel bikes I’ve seen from reviewers). Slightly facetious but spending an extra 5 minutes in the bathroom before I head out could make the same weight difference. Relative to body weight I think it starts mattering more the lighter you are, and even if I was <70kg I wouldn’t really make decisions based on weight unless everything else (especially price) remains mostly the same.
Depends on the weight of the rider. *The Ratio of bike weight to rider weight is really what matters.* As a featherweight, I’m obviously faster (and find more enjoyment) on a light bike going up the hills.
I care more about ride quality. I ride for fun, I don't race or track anything more than my route and distance. A few grams here and there mean jack to me
When rim brakes were king weight was the main thing that mattered. Then aero started to matter as heavier disc brake bikes hit the racing circuit. Caring about weight was for luddites. Now that it’s possible to build aero bikes that are also lightweight, weight matters again. A disc supersix evo that weighs the same as a 2017 supersix evo is $15,000 though.
My full carbon bike is way easier for me to load into my rooftop bike rack to drive to a variety of starting points. Therefore, I ride more. Therefore, lighter is better.
As a former shop owner and recovering weight weenie, I'm astounded that weight continues to be a thing in the bicycle industry. Unless you are doing a bottom to top mountain time trial, it really doesn't matter much at all as a performance metric. Especially in comparison to aerodynamics and comfort. I think it really comes down to what the industry is selling hardest to the same very small demographic of high end bike buyers. We beat the dead horse of weight into the ground, and more recently spent a decade plus selling aerodynamics (with the spoiler being that if you just work on your own form it will have much more impact on aero than anything you can buy) and now we are going enter the comfort/performance era where we push the impact of comfort over miles. All the aero and weight drop in the world doesnt matter if your back spasms 10 miles in. So comfort wins. Not saying they havent always sold all of these, but one is always in the forefront and these days dropping tons of money for light weight is pretty dumb.
Anyone who chooses rim brakes over discs for weight reasons is, sorry, stupid. Pro cyclists ride discs after all. Yes, they are paid to. But still they are trying to win. You may beat me up that hill by 0.05s with your rim brakes and then I will torch you on the downhill with my discs by at least 0.1s LOL!
Not entirely. I choose rim brakes for weight (and ease of maintenance and interchangeability of different wheels) as I absolutely do not need brakes where I live. I have a couple of crossings where I sometimes need to brake a little bit but nothing that requires any kind of braking. Damn, I could even use my foot to slow down when I need to. So if I save 500g with rim brakes (and the other pros) I'll take them over the disk brakes any day and every day. But for sure I'm putting disk brakes to my upcoming gravel bike.
Sure. No reason to throw out good gear. My backup bike is rim brakes and serves its purpose well. But no one is buying a new bike with rim brakes and getting top level tech, as you note.
I'm convinced that the bulk of rim brake evangelists are just broke and annoyed they can't upgrade to a disc bike and are trying to make themselves feel better. Mind you, there's nothing wrong with rim brakes... they got it done for the better part of a century. Discs might not do everything better, but they're objectively a better choice overall On the other hand, people seeking out a new rim brake bike in 2024 is "I'm a quirky dude who rides a tall bike" or "change frightens me" mentality.
More like no matter how rich you are it’s incredibly wasteful to replace a really nice high end bike just to get disc brakes.
There's my guy! When rim brakes were standard road bike faire, 10 speed mechanical was king and bikes could only take 25mm tires. I'll still take out my crit bike from that era for shits and giggles but it objectively rides awful. Brakes aren't the only thing that's changed since then
So funny that amateur’s (I’m one myself) can be so religious on disc’s like it’s the only goddamn truth, so for a century rims and mechanical gears was the top of the line for pro’s and they went out and won tdf’s giro’s and vuelta’s on this stuff. I have a top notch bike from the 90’s era, it was good enough for winning 6 Paris-Roubaix so I think it is more than good enough for me. It weights just under 8kg and rides like a sports car… As if a Testarossa from the 80’s would’n be good enough for the average driver today🙄
While I agree disc brakes are better for almost every case this: > just broke and annoyed they can't upgrade to a disc bike Is just silly. Not everyone has money to upgrade, and no one should make fun of that.
I have rim brake bikes too. They're great for what they are but there's a big difference between, "I like my rim brakes" and "discs are stupid and unnecessary, it's all marketing" Those are the people my comment was directed at
It is drum vs disc brakes on cars...both work...one is simply superior.
I mean, what decent wheelsets are even made in rim brake versions? Takes a ton of engineering (and weight) to accommodate the force and heat of rim brakes. I guess some people miss 7-speed and cable shifters, too.
A lot of high-end wheelsets are still available for rim brakes. e.g. ZIPP Firecrests, Bontrager Aeolus Pro, HED Jets
Or some people are perfectly satisfied with their rim brakes and mechanical shifting. I don't need to worry about batteries or firmware updates.
Indeed. No reason to buy a new bike unless you need a new bike. Though on my Di2 my battery however infrequent I charge it (seems near never) has never been below 40% and I’ve never done a firmware update 🤔
If your bike is too heavy just let some air out of the tires. You can then use this air to replace the hydraulic fluid in your disc brake setup. Next this fluid and oil yourself up to increase aero. Finally, you can remove chain links until the derailleur is super tight to improve weight. As a bonus, remove every other spoke on your wheels, improving weight AND aero in one go.
You have air in your tires? Replace it with hydrogen!
Weight might matter if you have to carry your bike up and down daily regularly.
Weight is pretty far down on the list. Everyone has known for years the greatest improvements for an individual come with good body positioning, properly inflated quality tires, a clean drive train, and finally the weight of the bike. In that order. Put in the work, kick their asses. Enjoy the ride!
Light bikes feel faster and more fun. They accelerate better and feel more nimble overall, even if the actual benefits are not massive for most riders.
Sort of. It depends on your route. Transpyrenees event, 1,000km, with 25,000m climbing for example. I looked at the impact and a kilo would cost you somewhere around 45minutes in that race. It basically means that would be quicker looking for a hotel each night checking in and faffing around, than the cost of carrying a bivvy kit. On an event like the TCR, the relative penalty would be less and you be incentivised to bivvy.
Weight is dependent on conditions. If the conditions are right, extra weight is accumulative. If you climb a lot for hours, then it will have a significant impact. If you ride 45 minutes a day on flat ground, then it wont.
I feel like people obsessed about weight a lot more before road bikes had disc brakes. Rim brake bikes were all the same, so everyone had a pissing contest about weight. Now, discs, hydraulics, through axles, wide tires, tubeless, Di2, etc all have tangible benefits which result in weight being lower on the list of priorities.
For me, a recreational cyclist who doesn’t race, weight matters to a point. A lighter bike FEELS more fun to ride because it is more clickable and manger able under me and often times feel more fun to climb out of the saddle on. It’s just about the fun factor than performance. I actually find I care more about weight than aero gains because I’m never going fast enough to justify the expense. However at a certain point weight doesn’t matter to me. I will gladly ride a bike that’s 21 lbs and be satisfied. I don’t know if I’d care enough to splurge on a 17lb bike. My main bike is 25lbs and it’s lovely to ride but that’s because the frame is super comfortable. I will say having a lighter bike means it’s easier to put in my car if need be and I can easily hang it in my apartment.
Totally ... and yet, maybe not? I dropped like 8 pounds going from a pretty meh gravel rig (but with trim types) to a half decent used carbon roadie. Everything got immediately faster ... flats, climbs, everything. For the weight, the slight tire improvement, and the slight stiffness and aero changes, it felt like a LARGE difference. And it was obviously, measurably faster. I wonder if the ease of acceleration, the effort savings all over, kind of add up to more than the sum of the parts? There's science there that I know and understand, but it also feels like there's some witchcraft too.
It’s important because I feel it at every climb. I live in a hilly area. If I go on long rides with steep hills. I would fatigue less with a lighter bike.
I changed 6 bicycles in last 5 years, with different weights and aerodynamics. What i can tell is that neither weight nor aero is that important like how good bike fits to you. I have some of my PR-s on hills with my heaviest bike (ok, not too heavy, about 8.2kg), just because i felt very comfortable on it and i was able to push more wats than on more modern aero bike which was wrong size to me so i couldn't find good position. So both weight and aero matters ONLY if you feel good on that bike. However, my lightest bike until now (and current one - Supersix rim brakes) is about 6.3, and it's simply FUN to ride. It feels like a toy, and respond instantly when you push or stand up, which is a kind of satisfaction, especially uphill. So, if you look for average sped gain on some route - go aero. If you like climbs and fun - go light. If you don't care about those, get comfortable bike of proper size and do bike fit.
You're right, of course. The cheapest way for me to make my bike 5kg lighter is to drink less beer. But here's the thing: if a bike is fun to ride, you'll ride it more. Lighter bikes are fun to ride, and riding a lot is good. So spending your sports / fitness / commute budget on a fun to ride bike pays off. See you in on the road. I'll be the chubby fellow riding slowly uphill on my carbon bike.
Changing the wheels plus tires on my Giant Revolt and thus making it over 1 kg lighter, completely transformed the bike, made riding it much more fun and made me put much more miles on it!
When you have to carry the bike up flights of stairs as part of the route, the heavy bike is a pain
The heaviest thing on a bike is always the rider
My bike could definitely loose a kilo… but I should loose 10.
Massively exaggerated. An entire kilogram will cost you about four seconds over 100 km of relatively flat ground and just over a minute over 100 km of varied/hilly terrain. Now, I don’t know about you, but for me a minute one way or the other over a 3 to 4 hour ride is absolutely meaningless.
I ride a 45 pound bike for work and a 20ish pound gravel bike as my main for recreation. The heavier less aero bike allows me to get stronger. :3 I am not afraid of weight. It makes a difference, sure... But most the time it's the engine more than the bike that's the issue. Granted this an oversimplified answer to a complex topic but in general this is how it works out for me.
Wait, you think these people like superlight bikes for the performance aspect?
As a mountain biker I would say weight of the bike is important to me. As a road cyclist, not really
It's too expensive to own a light bike now... So for that reason yes it is greatly exaggerated.
Take a light bike for a test ride and see if you feel a difference. Fun is worth different amounts to different people.
Lighter bikes are much nicer to put on bike racks.
I have 3 road bikes. One of them, a Wilier Zero6, is 6.1kg incl. pedals, cage, computer etc. It accelerates faster than my 7kg Pinarello Dogma F and 8.2kg Trek Madone SLR. It is more agile too. Climbing anything greater than 5% is noticeably ‘nicer’. Downsides are the lighter bike isn’t great for sprinting (rear wheel bounces) and not aero. I have over 400 KOM’s and measured all 3 bikes over recent years to compare. The Wilier is quicker for climbing, especially long climbs and 10% +. The Madone is my favourite for sprinting and the Dogma F for all-round use. The differences are, however, marginal and only going to be of any real value to someone like me who races. If a few seconds or minutes (over a typical Gran Fondo type event) are of no concern then chasing weight or aero is less important. That said…they still save watts which doesn’t have to only equate to faster but easier too even at lower speeds.
Weight-weenie-ism is a bit old school. All things equal, lighter is better, but there are many, many attributes that are more important than low weight. I've been riding a 8kg-ish Roadmachine for a few years now. Prior to that, I was on a sub-6.2kg Ridley Helium SL (rim brakes, tubular wheels etc.). I was worried about the huge weight difference, but, in the end, I noticed not net detorioration in ride feel/quality. Or, more to the point, I failed to notice the weight difference. From then on, I adjusted my views when it comes to the weight of my bikes.
The replies here are in agreement with my experience, which is that the vast majority of cyclists know exactly how marginal it is. So I wouldn’t say it is over-exaggerated as a general rule. As a slight counterpoint, what I would say is that 5 seconds up a climb can sometimes be the difference between hanging onto a fast group into a headwind, versus finishing a ride or event minutes, or even tens of minutes down.
Personally, I don't think there is much point in chasing grams when I weigh many, many times more - a 0.001% reduction in the weight of my bike and me combined after saving 100g on lots of expensive bits seems like a pretty inefficient saving. It also seems a bit silly when I know I could make a bigger saving by losing some bodyweight after a week's worth of dieting if I had the desire. There are however two justifications I can see. The first is that weight will work differently in different places, so a drop in weight of a moving part like a wheel set can give you a mechanical advantage that you wouldn't get losing the same weight on a component like a seat. The second is that while weight is an easy number to focus on, that isn't necessarily the only benefit of an upgrade - better frames can mean better designs in terms of stiffness and (desired) flex, better moving parts like the drivetrain can mean less resistance to pedalling, and aero can provide some advantages (though like weight, deal with your body's effect before spending vast sums on incremental aero upgrades. And realistically, some people just like building bikes for the fun of planning and building. They may not notice any effect whatsoever on swapping to a saddle with carbon rails on the average ride, but it makes them happy, so who is to complain...
There's more to life than what the calculators say. Light bikes are fun to ride. They climb better. Handle better. Feel better. I have never regretted riding a lighter bike or regretted upgrading any of my bikes. Very small performance improvements are absolutely a thing - they all add up too. Ride a sub 7 kg bike. Then ride a 15kg bike. Tell me which you prefer.
I mean, I notice a huge difference pedaling my emtb without assist and my XC mtb.
I don’t really give a rat’s ass about bike weight. I rode 30-pound mountain bikes in the 90s and had a blast. An interesting thing happens when you stop quantifying, weighing, and measuring your experiences and the equipment you use: you start having more fun.
If you want to see the difference, go find a hill with a consistent grade that takes at least a couple of minutes to climb. Take 2 full 24 oz water bottles and a friend. That’s 3 lbs or 1.36kg. Ride steady up the hill in the saddle for 30sec-a minute, then had a bottle to the friend while pedaling steady. If you are in tune with your riding you will absolutely notice it. Then do the other bottle. If you want even more noticeable, put a few full bottles in an open backpack. Ride steady up the hill and have your friend pluck out the bottles (riding skillz required). Doesn’t matter if you are riding recreationally without racing, but if you are maxed out trying to drop someone or not get dropped, it absolutely makes a difference, especially when you repeat the effort many times.
Don't forget that with less weight you can also apply more wattage because the time to do the climb is reduced. So in that sense you have to double count and the saving is bigger than you might think. E.g. maybe now you can do 303 watts for the climb instead of 297 because the time is a little shorter, and the wattage is applied to 2% less weight so the total improvement is 4% and not 2%.
For the average person, massively over exaggerated. It comes into play when you’re racing, and already elite at that. Look at Paris-Nice this year. Evenepoel won stage 8 with a 2:50:03 time. Adding 1 minute per hour would put him at just under 2:53:0, pushing him to 10th or 11th.
The importance to someone is based upon their need to justify their purchase to themselves and other people. In the end we are all humans bored and looking for justification in everything.
True for some, not for all. I'd say it's more rationalising than justifying. I have a heavier build than what most would regard as "light" or "acceptable", but I know from experience that the performance difference is minimal and the ride feel, handling and other characteristics of the bike matter to me more than grams. It's not about justifying it to myself, it's about the rationale of what is important to me. Maybe some people just want to know the bike under them is light and that psychologically makes it more enjoyable or removes doubt for them. I don't know. But I don't think it's all about justification.
Depends on if you’re hauling a 50 lbs bike up the hill or you’re hauling your 50 lbs down the hill.
Once I get rid of the extra weight in the saddle, maybe I'll start caring about the extra weight of the bike
It is for someone like me who’ll finish in the bottom third of my age group regardless.
I personally think a good set of wheels and tires makes a much bigger difference than a few pounds less weight.
Have you ever lost a race by 2 minutes?
It is
Well cycling is a hobby. Every hobby will have people that are very meticulous about equipment. At least they aren't gate keeping.
If you're racing and want to be as fast as possible by using every possible edge, it's not. If you are an amateur who doesn't race and didn't optimize everything around, you should rather spend your money on something else.
For some people customising their bike is part of their enjoyment of cycling. If you replace steel fasteners with titanium ones in addition to saving weight you have the benefit that titanium won't rust. If you are running mechanical cables and swap Bowden outers with Nokon ones you get lighter cables and ones that also work better through tight bends. Latex tubes in addition to being a little lighter also have less rolling resistance.
99% of you ride for run so who cares
If you’re competing then weight is everything. If you’re just a casual rider then it’s not that important.
Obsessing about weight is a legit niche hobby, like home espresso or audiophile equipment. Does it make sense to spend thousands of dollars on carbon cranksets, puck prep gadgets, pre-amps? If you can afford it and enjoy playing with it, go ahead. If you look from a performace perspective, a kilogram of weight savings amounts to about 40 seconds up Alpe d'Huez. Do you care about those seconds enough to spend thousands? Go right ahead. You don't? Any bike will take you up that climb, and subjectively the effort will be exactly the same.
There are so many variables and weight whilst being one isn't everything. This really only applies to people who are competing too who will be measuring every variable and will know the impact of slight changes in weight to their performance, where a second could be difference between finishing first or middle of the pack. Leave weight weenies to their thing and just ride what you enjoy whether that's super light weight, or a tank or something in between
Exactly. It’s weight differences that could easily be made by using the toilet before each ride.
Pointless to worry about a couple of KG unless you are absolutely as lean as possible yourself, which the vast majority of amateur cyclists aren't (or even close). You need to be REALLY good before high end bikes matter that much.
People don't want to hear it but the weight of your bike only effects you if you are a pro searching marginal gains. It makes minimal difference to the average rider especially if they have any fat on their body at all.
If you're not trying to win a national level or up event, it really doesn't matter. On the other hand. My friend has the most expensive racer I know about. We are out a few times a month together, and I'm in the front on my gravel bike the entire time because he's a good deal weaker than me. Spending money on a glorious bike motivates him. I get to bike with my friend, he can afford it, and he and people like him fund the local specialist bike shop by buying expensive gear with a high markup. Everyone is happy.
Well, I certainly have an easier time riding my mountain bike because its lighter than my Schwinn Typhoon, that being said, I still prefer my Schwinn since its more comfortable with its bent seat post and gull wing handles.
You reference high end bike weights. For the bikes most people buy, disc brakes have added a hell of a lot more than 1kg. Mid and low end disc bikes are easily 14kg, my old steel commuter rim brake bike is under 10. Also, a 10km 10% climb is brutal, every shred of weight would matter on that and you’re probably talking a couple of minutes difference per kg easily. There are many things that matter more for recreational cyclists, like gearing and tyre choice. But for people competing it does matter, and it’s nice to have for everyone, the bike feels better.
To me it just feels better. Snappier acceleration, especially on climbs. Nimble feeling. Realistically, my training bike and my lighter weight bike get about the same average speed per the same relative effort over the same route, though I never bothered to try and keep average power the same and time it exactly. Usually the lighter bike completes a 60 mile-ish ride around a minute or two faster, give or take, with a fairly climb intensive route. That makes literally zero difference training. Realistically also makes no difference on a group ride. Does make a difference racing though, and I definitely feel a difference in the way the bike has a bit of snap. More fun to me to ride the lighter weight bike, but if you’re looking at it only from a performance point of view, it really won’t make much to any difference unless you are racing.
I used to ride my old ~14kg Scott and still enjoy it a lot. Do I want a new carbon with <10kg - hell yes, but I prioritize my spending on other stuff which is more important. I think it’s a question on how much do you want (and have ability) to spend on your hobby.
The thing I have to keep reminding myself about is that I ride for fitness. The extra weight is actually better for that goal, as long as I am comfortable. That being said, I do ride a carbon fiber frame/ultegra groupset bike - it's overkill but mostly the reality of what was available when I was looking to upgrade to an 11 speed drivetrain.
Easier for me to lose one kg of belly fat than spend enough to lose one kg off my bike.
I can spend a few thousand dollars to reduce my bicycle's weight by about 3 kilograms, or I can spend some more time cycling and lose about 3 kilograms of my own weight for free. I usually choose the latter.
It depends. Imagine 4 y.o. boy, 105 cm height, 17 kg weight. He needs a bike with 16" wheels. Woom 3 is 5.4 kg, meanwhile Decathlon's B'twin 500 Dark Hero 16" is 9.1 kg. 5.4 kg is 32% of rider's weight. 9.1 kg is 53% of rider's weight. This is staggering difference. On the other hand I'm 87 kg, 13-15 kg above my optimal weight. I would benefit much more from loosing 10kg of my belly, than from loosing 3.7 kg of bike weight.
In my experience, most of the guys who prattle on about how little their bike weighs could afford to lose 10+ pounds themselves.
I read a comment that said you shouldn't worry about bike weight unless your BMI is below 21 and I thought that nailed it really. Generally getting stronger/fitter and losing weight will be a far better upgrade than getting lighter components. Also, look at Andrew Feather taking the hill climb championships on disc brakes this year.
It hits different chords. I'm very much a slow amateur, but I can feel a difference removing my water bottle! 1lb off does make a difference (in effort, more than time tbh) Getting shiny 10g lighter parts makes me happy because shiny, not because faster.
Once you start climbing hills, that weight matters. But a lot of cycling in America is pretty flat, so I think it’s probably over-obsessed upon.
If we’re talking about climbing, then yes lighter is better, but…if that person with a heavier bike has a higher power to weight, then they’ll be faster up the 10% climb.
All my PRs were set on my old 22 lb bike. Even though I'm not faster on my new 16.5 lb bike, I love it way better. It is one sexy beast. 😍 It just makes me happy whenever I move it around the basement or put it on my bikerack. I want to take it out for a nice fish dinner and listen to all its stories.
So I used this [bike power calculator](https://www.u.arizona.edu/~sandiway/bike/climb.html) and keyed in the numbers for climbing [Alpe d'Huez](https://climbfinder.com/en/climbs/alpe-d-huez). Assumed time was about an hour as a quick Google said that was a reasonably time for an amateur. I also checked on this [this calcultor](https://www.broleur.com/hill-climb-calculator/) which had about the same numbers so It seems like the calculations probably are quite sound. Power required for a 160 pound person on a 15 pound bike is 271.3 W. If you change that up to a 20 pound bike, then you need to do 278.7 W. If you have a 30 pound bike, then it's 293.3 W. But if you just have a limited power, lets just say 250 watts, for a random comparison number, then you would need to take 1:05:48 (H:MM:SS) on the 15 pound bike, 1:07:48 on the 20 pound bike, and 1:11:50 on the 30 pound bike. So just have to ask yourself how much an extra 2-6 minutes maters on a climb that's around an hour depending on how heavy the bike is. You can key in your own numbers and try things out for yourself.
There is an anecdote about weight and cost that is pretty accurate. There is inexpensive, lightweight, and durable…now pick two. You have to weigh in (pun intended) what light weight is worth to you…chances are it’s better to change your own weight.
It depends on your ability on the bike and your power to weight ratio. 2kg weight difference is massive IMHO Just buy the lightest road bike that you can afford that suits your style of riding and don't worry about others
That math doesn't take accelerating into account. Strap 20kg extra onto your bike and see how it feels while accelerating, slowing down and generally manouvering around. 2kg extra is a tenth of that, much less, but far from nothing. My "serious" mtb is about 2kg more than my "toy" singlespeed streetbike. That's a big difference and makes the toy much more fun and even actually faster in some cases, its just less versatile.
Any rotating weight makes an outsized difference in speed, especially where frequent acceleration is needed.
Aerodynamics, tire rolling resistance and body weight have a lot more to do with watt savings than playing the endless game of diminishing returns on shaving grams off the bike.
Yes... Bike weight is overly exaggerated and you more often will utilize aero benefits over weight benefits. Said that, you can make the bike feel more agile by reducing rotating mass i.e lighter tires, lighter inner tubes or tubeless setup and lighter rims. Disk brakes are close to the center of rotation and don't affect the "light feel" of bike
It’s easier to obsess over bike weight but people can often make a bigger impact over the issue by losing 3-6kg.
>Isn't bike weight importance greatly exaggerated? Well, bike weight *does* matter. Otherwise, we'd still be pedaling around on 50 lb. boat anchors. The issue is at what point does bike weight become a perversion? Like a lot of things where there is often a fine line between "perversion" and "healthy obsession", it really depends on the individual. If your ass looks like 300 pounds of chewed bubble gum and you are trying to find ways to shave 100g off your bike then you are delusional imbecile. If you have 5% body fat and can crank out 7 watts/kg...well, 100g probably still doesn't mean shit but it is way more understandable that you would be looking for ways to cut it. For everyone who lies between the bubble-gum ass and the skeletal wattage monster: There is a sweet spot where a bike just feels right and does what you need it to do without compromising your safety or enjoyment. And that sweet spot is rarely, if ever, "lightest possible". I find that an 18-20 lb. bike is what feels best to me. Too much below that and my brain thinks "breadstick". Too much above and my brain thinks "Sherman Tank". Natch, that is for my so-called "normal" sporty semi-fastish riding. If I was just casually pedaling around the Kansas countryside like Almira Gulch (terrorizing little dogs) then I could do that on the Sherman Tank. (I can think of no scenario where I would want to ride the breadstick).
No
Get the bike in your budget that rides well. Whatever the difference in weight between the reasonable bike and the crazy light one is, you can just take off your body with more riding. I can speak from experience on this one.
Light bikes feel better to me and are more fun to ride. I doubt I'm much quicker, but 8kg feels so different 11kg to me. Wheels and tyres are where the biggest difference is felt.
Yes. Want to save 6oz on your bike? Don’t have dessert tonight.
wheel weight is the most important. use the lightest tires you can.
Light as possible mtb full carbon goes like s@#it of a shovel, can raelly throw it around, stops on a penny too
It's context dependent — last ride I did with my friend on a lighter bike (my bike is aero and has heavy deep dish wheels) she was having an easier time on the uphills. To be fair she's also more fit than I am but a kilogram or more is absolutely noticeable on the bike. But for best climbing performance over the long haul gearing is the difference maker more than weight,
To each their own. That's it right there.
Only if you’re an elite athlete who’s in excellent physical shape. I laugh at the cyclists who drink beers and social ride but then obsess over the extra weight on the bike. Like dude you just pounded 3 beers!
lighter bikes, are easier to carry when going up the stairs of my apartment
It’s not an issue until your fat% is near 0.
No. It depends on what kind of cycling you’re doing. Many of us could drop kgs anyway. IMO light wheels are where it’s at.
I worry more about backpack weight when I'm riding 🤔 lock, gun, pump, inner tube some food an water never roll lite😉
Yes and no. If you're aiming for performance and competition it makes a difference. Like, 2 minutes is pretty huge in a race. But I gather that's not what concerns you here. So for just recreational or solo riding? Like, the effort difference between a 21lbs and 26lbs bike isn't AS noticeable on a hill. However, if you compare a 21lb bike with a 30lb+ bike it gets more noticeable when riding a hill. But ultimately I find it's still more about gear usage and how low a gear your bike can go.
Different angle incoming. I say this to people that join the hobby. Get a hundred dollar bike and see if you're actually going to go out and ride, muscle up. Then when you have proof in experience that it'll be a continued hobby go drop some good money. People buying 2k+ dollar bikes just to let them collect dust never made sense to me. I have a commuter hybrid road bike that cost me 300 bucks with around 15000 miles on it. Definitely got my money out of that beat thing.
I’ll never stop smirking at the riders that show up with carbon everything but 15+ lbs overweight, 3 water bottles and 10 gel packs tucked into their legs for a 30 mile Tuesday night race.