Shedding lbs without shedding £'s

jonnyashworth

I like most of you like riding a light bike, however when it comes to upgrading things to make a bike lighter it can be difficult to get your moneys worth for example if you decided to upgrade enough stuff on your ride to save a kilo I bet when you work out the total cost of a suitable upgrade package to do this you would be spending well over £1.50p on average for every gram you save.
So I ask everyone who reads this what are the best bang for buck upgrades you have made (or could make) to save weight on your ride? and how much does it cost and how much do you save?

DCR00

surely ghetto tubeless has to be one of the most cost effective weight savings ?

ride_whenever

Nope, going singlespeed without a doubt. Flog your old stuff and you're usually quids in.

Ghetto usually results in more weight but other advantages.

Coil to air is often pretty good as well, especially at the entry level of suspension.

Going rigid, big drop in weight for ~£100

Skinny tyres and ultralight tubes are also quite good.



However the starting point has a huge influence obviously.

cooldad

Stop eating pies.

jonnyashworth

all great ideas

especially the single chain ring up front (especially for your average trail rider. saves over 400g on just losing the mech and shifter in xt stuff without taking into account the chain rings and cables) so that has to be over 500g for a profit when you sell on the unused stuff!

this is great anymore tips out there??? would love to come up with a total weight saving of 1kg in total for an outlay of less than £200 that could work on any basic / mid range / top end trail bike out there

jonnyashworth

stop eating pies amazing genius stuff but i do quite like pies! :?

unixnerd

Wheels and tyres. You'd be amazed at the weight differences between tyres of the same size. Even on tyres with the same brand and model comparing widths and compounds gives a surprising difference.

I run Maxxis Ignitors, they're about half the weight of the Schwalbe Mountaineers they replaced. You might also think about going down a tyre width, I run 1.95s and for XC I notice no difference compared to the bigger tyres my last bike had except that they spin up slightly better on tarmac.

I've not researched weights on mtb wheels to the extent I have for my road bike. On that I went from a 2kg set to 1.5kg and it made a massive difference, best money I've ever spent. It'd be less of a difference on a mtb as the tyres are twice the weight even with light ones. But I'd say an average mtb could lose the best part of a kilo just on tyres and wheels.

pilsburypie

If you wanna go free then depending on your seatpost or bar lengths, you could chop em down.....

Super cheap £5 foam grips can save 100g from the lock on ones

Tyres can make a massive difference

supersonic

Depends what you have on to start really!

gezzza

Cheap, light, strong pick two.

Thats the age old principal i live by when looking to shed a few grams.

Ive taken a little risk with my saddle a £30 Ebay special 97g of carbon and its worked out so far (12 months).

every think else is not so cheap, but it depends on where your starting from a 30lb xc bike is easy to drop a few lbs from with out taking out a mortgage a 21lb F/s xc bike not so easy.

tlw1

go to the toilet before a ride

njee20

Foam grips +1

Lighter tyres, Rocket Rons can be had for £45ish from Germany for a pair, they'll drop 200g+ off your average pair of tyres, nice and grippy too.

Ultralight tubes are cheap weight saving, but IMO tubeless is a better all around option.

floosy

Loose weight first.. Thats what I did.

The weight of my bike off my body in fact.. cost nothing and saves money long term (less food to maintain current weight.)

So I now ride a bike that has zero weight.. (kinda in theory)



Dave.

m4point5

+1 for tyres. some nice XC tyres for less than 500g each.

eg:
racing ralph 2.1 pacestar claimed 465g
conti x-king 2.2 racesport claimed 460g

njee20

Rocket Ron FTW, 410g (mine have all been between 395 and 420), grippier than a Ralph, whilst being lighter.

Not the most durable, but you did want light!

The Rookie

"My name is Simon and I am a weight weenie" - phew, got that out the way first.

When I built my bikes I weighed every component (yes I know.....) and now when looking to lose more weight I know what everything weighs, and can do a cost and weight on any buy in order to minimise the cost to benefit ratio.

Good examples of weight saving
Bottle cages - not using it - take it off
Cage bolts - go Nylon if they are not holding anything
Shifters - twist shifts are much lighter than trigger
Grips - lock ons are heavy, get foam like Pork rinds or Avenir (AGG407 - Identical to the rinds but much cheaper!)
Tubes - tubeless may be lighter but Schwalbe 1-1.25" tubes work fine in any MTB tyre upto 2.1" and are only 120g
Gear cables, optimise the run, minimise the outer and inner length (free mod!)
Brakes - Go continental, putting the front lever on the same side as the front Calliper shortens the hose and looses weight
Bolts - make sure none are longer than they need to be, if an M6x16 sticks out 2mm on the other side, use an M6x14
Disc - next time you need new ones, check the weights before you buy (alligator are among the lightest and are cheaper than many heavier ones)
Spec' - lots of modern conveniances weigh, so if you don't frequantly adjust seat height, loose the QR clamp and go bolted, do you need QR skewers on your wheels (a puncture repair takes so long, does an extra 15s matter?) and go bolted skewer like Halo.

I have NOT done all this on my MTB (sometimes weight comes with a practical or durability benefit) but I have on my commuter (cable discs, I never use the cable adjuster, those adjuster lock nuts weigh 1g each dammit so off they came along with the reach adjusters)

As much weight reduction is about an eye for detail as it is about £'s, that eye for detail may mean a lot of little tweaks to save a little weight each but much of it will be free or very cheap.

I'll go hang up the anorak now!

Simon

njee20

To add to the above you can also cut down your seatpost and steerer (think carefully if you want to sell parts on though), free weight saving.

Additionally aluminium bolts are far cheaper than ti ones, changing chain ring bolts, headset top cap, shifter and brake lever clamp bolts and all bolts in your mech will save a reasonable amount without silly outlay- titanium bolts are far more expensive and weigh twice as much. Perhaps not for the ham fisted though...

MattJWL

matthew h wrote:

go to the toilet before a ride

What he said. And losing weight myself. Cheapest upgrades ever.

.blitz

Wheels & tyres account for ~33% of the overall weight; the rear wheel assembly typically 15-20% on its own.

Forks 15% or so

nuts/bolts typically 20-30% of every component

gezzza

The Beginner wrote:

"My name is Simon and I am a weight weenie" - phew, got that out the way first.

When I built my bikes I weighed every component (yes I know.....) and now when looking to lose more weight I know what everything weighs, and can do a cost and weight on any buy in order to minimise the cost to benefit ratio.

Simon

You are not alone

I went as far as putting all the weights into a spreadsheet, that is of course after i took the picture's on the scales

trail jacker

I was in a similar position to you, and I bought a new wheelset (Shimano MT15 - currently about £80 on sale at merlincycles.com) and ditched my 2.35" minions and bought some nice light Schwalbes half price (http://www.on-one.co.uk/news/products/q ... albe-tyres), and some lightweight inner tubes.

The weight saving is pretty massive, think it equates to around a kilo. And because its off the wheels the entire bike is much more nimble and chuckable.

Northwind

Drill it full of speedholes.

Or, actually, weigh everything so you know what you're dealing with. Some standard parts are madly heavy, others quite light. The bars on my old carrera weighed only 300g, not bad at all, the seatpost was half a kilo.

Take stuff off and don't replace it- big ring frinstance, most people will never miss it.

Replace standard nonloadbearing bolts with whatever cheap light alternatives you have- I got a wee bag of black M5 grub screws which go into bottle cage bolts, cost me 20p I think for 50 and weigh less than the expensive alu bolts most folks use.

Check the standard inner tubes- these can be staggeringly heavy.

Likewise tyres, OEM spec tyres can be very weighty

In fact even check the rim tape, sounds stupid but it can weigh more than you'd think and it's in the worst place

The Rookie

Northwind wrote:

In fact even check the rim tape, sounds stupid but it can weigh more than you'd think and it's in the worst place

Rim tape on some Giant wheels I had was that plastic strapping they use for wrapping parcels, must have weighed more than the inner tube at each end!

Nylon bolts for blanking frames is very light, I got a bag of 100 for about £7, sold what I didn't want on ebay at cost (a fraction of the price of the routine sellers!) although cost went up when royal snail went to the new posting as they would no longer fit in a 'letter'!

As Northwind says, its all about indentifying (first off) where you have a component significatly over average weight and replacing it then with an average weight part (which can be got cheap) a lot of cheaper Giants still come with half a Kilo of steel bar, so a 300g ally one (average) take off from someone doing an upgrade will cost you less than a fiver for about a 200g saving - a mates son bent his bars in an accident, amazed to find they were steel - it was a £350 bike.

Simon

njee20

Spreadsheets and what not are the preserve of the mediocre weight weenie. If you're a proper weenie, you just know what everything weighs ;-)

gezzza

njee20 wrote:

Spreadsheets and what not are the preserve of the mediocre weight weenie. If you're a proper weenie, you just know what everything weighs ;-)

im not a propper weenie

The Rookie

"A Blunt pencil is better than a sharp mind" I use a spreadsheet, how I am meant to remember every component on 2 bikes and all the upgrade options and how much each costs and the priority order I have in place as well as the cost/benefit calculation is beyond me, so maybe I'm not a proper weight weenie.

I do know I've lost 1364g off my commuter since I built it though.....85g to go until it breaks the 10Kg which will happen when a tyre wears out and is replaced (assuming tyre wear hasn't got me there already!)

Simon

njee20

You don't need to literally remember every component, just know the places you can save weight. If you've started with something with a lot of 'own brand' unknown components I can see it's harder, but if it's all known parts then it's generally pretty straightforward to know what you can save weight on.

I need to lose 110g to get below 20lbs on my Top Fuel. I know that I could fit a PowerCordz inner cable, and after I got a 50% off code last night I'm tempted, that'd be about 15g. I need to replace at least my LH pedal, as it's got a steel axled Egg Beater after I broke the ti one, that's about 40g, if I get some Egg Beater 3s and some ti axles it'd be a bit more. I need to do a few bolts - got some alloy rotor bolts on order, that's about 10g, do alloy bolts in the mech that's another 5 or so.

I want to sort my chain guide - I intend to get some sheet carbon fibre from Fiber Lyte and make one out of carbon, again with some alu bolts that'll probably drop 25g or so.

No spreadsheet, just a vague idea of what things weigh! That's 95g saved, only leaves 20 or so to go!

The Rookie

Oh OK, well I have all that......
Priorities on the commuter are:-
Ti bolts (smattering in key places)
Gatorskins (213g/ea)
Stronglight SS crankset (221g)
Home made cable system to delete full length outer on rear brake (35g)

The lighter the bike, the more it costs! Powercordz work out about £2/gram (£1 if you have 50% off!), some of my mods are at that, some at 40p/gram, one is at 13p, I recently found a mod at 6.4p by luck!

Simon

njee20

Ti bolts (smattering in key places)

Don't bother, just get alu in the places you can (headset, mechs, shifters and brake levers), far cheaper and half the weight of ti.

I must say the only bike I care about is my MTB, I did go through a phase of making the road bike really light with carbon wheels and what not, but CBA any more!

02gf74

njee20 wrote:

Ti bolts (smattering in key places)

Don't bother, just get alu in the places you can (headset, mechs, shifters and brake levers), far cheaper and half the weight of ti.

!

I was wonderng about this? You been riding ewith Al bolts and not had problems?

also where did you get the Al bolts from and cost? cheapest I have found was 99 p inc postage for M6 30 mm cap head on ebay.

(I would need both M6 and M5 bolts)

njee20

Pro-Bolt, excellent quality and reasonble price. Do every size you could want.

I've run alu bolts for years in the places I mentioned. Wouldn't use them in stems, seat clamps etc, but they're fine in low stress areas. Intend to get some for my brake calipers too, particularly on post mount brakes they'll be alright. Perhaps to be avoided if you're on the larger side/ham fisted.