Reducing bike weight

tommy_tommy

I just completed my first season of cycle sportive riding and plan to enter some 4th cat road races in 2009.

I currently race and train on a 15 year old, 14 speed giant CFR 3 upgraded with Kysrium elite wheels. The bike weighs 21.5lb with the race wheels fitted. I weigh 66Kg at 5ft 10 with around 9% body fat so I have little scope to reduce my own weight so was looking at ways to reduce the weight of my bike.

Is 21.5lb heavy by todays bike standards? if I could get the bike to around 18lbs would I see a great difference when climbing? What are best upgrades to reduce bike weight after the wheels.

jpembroke

After you've replaced the groupset, forks, bars, stem, saddle, seatpin etc etc you may as well have sold the bike and bought a new one, to be honest. Seriously, if you plan to race it may well be worth investing in a new bike.

at least you have a decent set of wheels.

JGS

Also with a new bike you would probably benefit from advances in frame design, manufacturing methods and geometry. There would be a lot to upgrade, so you should probably work out a component list, find out how much that would cost (including labour if you aren't going to fit it yourself), then compare this to a new bike with similar componentry?

neeb

I'm about the same weight as you or slightly less, and while a lot of the obsession about bike weight is misplaced, I think you really would notice a significant difference if you rode, say, a 16-17lb bike instead of a 21lb one. I agree with jpembroke though, you'd be far better off buying a new bike or building one up with a new frame/fork and components. You could spend almost as much trying to upgrade your current bike and you'd probably find that you would lose only about half of the extra weight compared with getting a new bike. 4-5lbs does make a difference, but you probably wouldn't notice a 2lb difference. Also the new frame is likely to be stiffer/more efficient.