Weight saving - what's the average cost per, say, 10g?

silly lily

Good morning!
Has abyone, I wonder, actually done such calculations?
Say, you buy a new drive train, change cassette, whatever - with some weight saving, how much would that mean per 10 g. As components prices vary, there must be an average price...

paulbox

It really depends on where you are starting from, if it is very low down the respective component ranges then it is pretty cheap to lose a few lbs. If your bike is kitted out in XT it is going to cost you a whole lot more to upgrade.

lawman

As above, it's all about what you're upgrading, knocking a few lbs off a £500 bike wouldn't cost you the earth, knocking a lb or two off a £3000 bike can cost as much as the bike it self, but if you look around it can be done relatively cheaply

allthegearnoidea

as the others have said, it depends So much on what your starting with, if youve got a supermarket bike with branded shimano kit, then spending £50 on some second hand parts could shave Masses off! £200 could majorly transform it with parts from ebay etc. but if youve got a high endwell kitted out bike then you could well be into the £100/grams area, if not more ££££ for less grams saving!

that said, this years XTr will filter down to the next Gen Xt in a coupl eof years and so on!

Tank-slapper

My general rule is £1 per gram.

Daz555

A month off the beer dropped 7lbs and saved me a wedge of cash.

Thewaylander

To be honest people who care that much about gram saving are crazy people, weight weenies, or racing snakes...

Raymondavalon

silly lily wrote:

... - with some weight saving, how much would that mean per 10 g. As components prices vary, there must be an average price...

Free...

Have a dump before you ride..

Mojo_666

Daz555 wrote:

A month off the beer dropped 7lbs and saved me a wedge of cash.

+1

Also taking a really big crap in the morning is a must for the short term, no way would I spend £100's to save a few ounces when I can crap 2lbs for free.

njee20

What if you do that and save a few ounces? You go even quicker!

Thewaylander

njee20 wrote:

What if you do that and save a few ounces? You go even quicker!

Depends where you want to go quicker, Chunky bikes are normally better going down(ooeer misses)

And as for the take a crap idea, nooo save it get some quality wind and a match jet propulsion is in the house!

njee20

That's not necessarily true. Even DH racers try and shave grams.

Obviously fitting SIDs and 2.1" tyres won't help, but a lighter stem will not slow you down. Bigger bikes are faster downhill, the extra weight is a by product.

Thewaylander

yeh but trim the fat of summat like your wheels and you normally end up with wheels that don't track get knocked of course and give you head ache.

I have yet to ride a bike below 30pounds where the wheels don't feel like there bending under hard cornering.


You have to face the truth most people just want to lost weight for no actuall reason and purpose, With you i can understand you want to race, light weight really helps you there for maitaining high output over longer periods, but for most people it's a fad thing.

njee20

Oh yeah I agree, and I definitely think most people could lose weight off themselves first and it would make a bigger difference, was just saying that heavier = better downhill isn't necessarily the case.

I find my lighter wheels handle better downhill too, which has surprised me frankly.

Thewaylander

Hehe never found a light set of wheels that go well down hill, but then i'm always complaining that most downhills don't go down enough adn that i have to damn well pedal :P

How is that carbon sheet work going anyways? was interested by that?

njee20

Not got it yet, will post up when I've had a play! Reckon it'll be ok, gonna stick with simple shapes in the first instance haha! Should get a chance to fiddle on Saturday.

Thewaylander

Best post some pictures on that.

Anonymous

I don't agree 100% with all this "have a crap before your ride, save you money" talk.

OK to a point it might be true hill climbing and more important for road riding.

But what's true with mountain bikes is your maneuvering the bike around beneath you a lot. Especially say on technical single track. A lighter bike is more responsive and easier to handle especially helpful on longer rides.

I found lightening the front of the bike made a bike difference, by which I mean anything that rotates round the headset (bars/stem/forks ect). Wheels also, light stiff wheels make a huge difference.

I would agree that saving weight isn't the 'be all and end all', but it is important.

Anonymous

But to answer the OP's question -

Once you get in to mid range gear it's quite likely you'll be spending approx £100 to save 100g.

Thewaylander

RichardSwt wrote:

I don't agree 100% with all this "have a crap before your ride, save you money" talk.

OK to a point it might be true hill climbing and more important for road riding.

But what's true with mountain bikes is your maneuvering the bike around beneath you a lot. Especially say on technical single track. A lighter bike is more responsive and easier to handle especially helpful on longer rides.

I found lightening the front of the bike made a bike difference, by which I mean anything that rotates round the headset (bars/stem/forks ect). Wheels also, light stiff wheels make a huge difference.

I would agree that saving weight isn't the 'be all and end all', but it is important.

I'd say no to this, i went from 32 forks to 36 the handling difference was extreme, and it weigh alot more...

bennett_346

I don't think people are taking into consideration the importance of unsprung weight enough, 10g shaved off the weight of a wheel will have a significant impact on handling compared with 10g shaved off the riders weight.

silly lily

RichardSwt wrote:

But to answer the OP's question -

Once you get in to mid range gear it's quite likely you'll be spending approx £100 to save 100g.

Thank you going back to topic!

njee20

But that's not an average cost, just a ratio a lot of people think is a sensible limit.

I don't disagree, doesn't mean I won't exceed it mind.

Tank-slapper

Me neither. There are other considerations such as performance, compatibility, special offers, pocket depth, etc.

The £1 per 1g thing is easy to remember and work out.

njee20

Where you're starting from has to be the single biggest consideration.

I could save massive amounts on my winter road bike for relatively small amounts of money.

On my MTB I'd really struggle to change anything that would gain me 1g/£!

MrChuck

I was thinking that the other day when I bought a new wheel for my road bike. It came down to 2, with £15/150g (according to the shop scales) between them. I thought 10g per pound was alright.

I'm a bit torn on the lightweight thing, especially for MTBing where everything's likely to have lbs of mud hanging off it anyway and you've probably got a Camelbak full of bits and bobs instead. A few grams or tens of grams here and there seems insignificant.

On the other hand it all adds up if you're looking at the whole package. Clearly getting some lighter bars on something that's otherwise a bit of a tank isn't going ot transform it.

Parts break or wear out soon enough and a bit of searching will virtually always get you a replacement that's lighter than you had before for the same sort of price (if you don't mind last year's model perhaps) so why not?

njee20

But if you add 3lbs of mud to a bike that was 5lbs lighter in the first place it's still lighter :-)

The lighter bike doesn't attract any more mud.

Clutching at straws I realise.

paulbox

bennett_346 wrote:

I don't think people are taking into consideration the importance of unsprung weight enough, 10g shaved off the weight of a wheel will have a significant impact on handling compared with 10g shaved off the riders weight.

So what you're really saying is don't crap on your rims...