Light weight wheels for heavy rider ??

Dog296

Well my local trail centre is the forest of dean, and that has a blue/red and a pure red route, bit I do like visiting other trail centres with black routes.

Although id say 70% of my biking is commute, I still build my bike to cope with what ever I throw at it really. I do also plan to do a few long routes in Scotland, coast to coast, western highlands etc.

My choice in fork will be air, prefer duel air rockshox, bit I cant afford them right now.

allthegearnoidea

Going tubeless will prolly save you around 100g per wheel, but you wont half notice it!! save a lb on the wheel is equiv to 3lb on the frame!!
i went for the AM classics Last january, based on that most the pre built wheel sets run at 80-90kg rider wieght and being 100kg am already over that!! the Am classics run on 240lb so i have spacve to grow!! i can honestlty say that the AM tubeless wheels are Amazing, theyve taken some serious abuse from me on a hardtail and ive had to do Nothing to them at all,
the bonus with tubeless for us slightly heavier peeps is that you can run lower pressures without having pinchflat issues, i used to have to run tubes at 45psi to avoid flatting, can easily run these at 25psi with no troubles!!

when you get to certain point with the bike you'll start to nitice the price for weight saving goes up!! you'll be in the £100/100g area,
id suggest, to get to your target weight easiest, look at a lighter frame! the cubes are good but not the lightest! ;-)

Dog296

Well ive just built my wheels.

My old set were 2842g complete without tyres.

My new set is 2325g complete without tyres.

Ive saved 517g over all!! I also found out my cassette weighs 407g on its own!

Shame I cant find a nice light 8 speed cassette :-(

Anonymous

Hey thats really good to know a lb on the wheel is eqivilent to 3 on the frame, blimey.

I dont really have much faith with tubeless and I often find myself 15 miles away from home, am more of a tube n patch kinda guy still, but I bought these tubes today and there only 95g each:

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=17342

I also bought these tyres:

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=69324

Your right too about the £100/100g ratio, I have almost run outta things to replace on the cube, theres the brakes, frame, seat and seatpost left, everything else has been upgraded lol, frame is 1800g so maybe I could save 500g with a carbon jobbie, oh and me crank also needs to be upgraded with a hollowtech bb.

Wobbit

Looking pretty awesome mate! I'm looking into new wheels for my Cube Ltd, I'm stuck between hope pro 2s on crests or Superstar switch egos on crests, I'm just a bit worried about the build quality of superstar so seeing yours will hopefully put my mind at rest.

Have you got a link to the rotors you have chosen? It's a shame I can't use the ones I have, bloody shimano!

Anonymous

Cheers mate

I've looked into the superstars and from what I have seen they all get great reviews, but i'll defo keep ya posted and let ya know how I get on with plenty of pics.

The rotors I bought are here :

http://www.cyclexpress.co.uk/alairotor.aspx

And with what the bloke said above about 1lb being worth 3 off the frame I couldnt resist so bought some titanium rotor bolts off evilbay http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0798809494

Thats it now, am broke, the bike best be lightning after this

Wobbit

Cheers, I will keep an eye out for an update. You should like the Rons, I run one on the back, pretty fast rolling tyre.

allthegearnoidea

The analog frames only 1800g! always thought it was a bit more than that, but in which case, isnt bad at all!!
you could get a carbon frame form china for £250, iirc they are just over 2lb frames! i ran an old stylee one before the cotic, A lot of fun!!

tubeless wise, i carry a tube in the bag/saddle bag just incase, have had issues with the Am classic valves in the past but otherwise, been spot on, had to put a tube in the back last winter, the difference in feel of the bike was Amazing!!

there comes a point in the search for weight weenyness that you have to question weight saviong over useablility! you can save quite a bit of weight on some items but you end up having a bike that doesnty like the rough stuff in fear of breaking!!!

twonks

As a bit of research, I have ridden on Hope Pro II with stans 355 rims and tubeless Maxxis Advantage tyres for around 3 years.

Have ridden welsh trail centres, Cannock a fair few times and local trails nearly every week when I wasn't injured.

They are still as true as the day I bought them (from wheelpro) and as I'm 107KG this is quite impressive.

Anonymous

Some great info here guys, lookin forward to fittin mine n seein what the real world difference is, gonna be an agonising week waiting cos of bank holiday.

njee20

'1lb on the wheels equivalent to 3lbs on the frame' is rubbish! There's a (debatable) marginal difference due to the rolling mass, needing to accelerate it etc, but not three times better.

IMO £1/g is good value weight saving, much beyond that there have to be other gains I reckon!

allthegearnoidea

Sorry njee, is something I read on here a few Years ago from one of the well regarded peeps!

Anonymous

I run a gps bike recording thing called Endomondo n I ran other day n set me fastest lap time setting 2 new personal best times during the run too, gave it 100% effort, I'll run it with new set up at weekend n see if there's any benefit over a 16 mile course, 1hr 14 mins time to beat I'll be gutted if its same lol

allthegearnoidea

It'll turn out at 1hr 20m now just you wait lol!

njee20

I set a load of personal bests on climbs at the weekend using my heavier wheels with some more weighty tyres. Not vastly fit presently either.

Lighter wheels do definitely help, and make the bike feel a lot better, but a lot of it is just that - psychological. No problem with that, but losing weight yourself will make far more difference than any wheels ever will.

booyaka

any sign of the wheels?

Anonymous

Not yet mate, still says Processing

Paid for them Saturday but they only been back at work yesterday and today, am really hoping they despatch tomorrow for a Saturday delivery, fingers crossed.

I did get me Uberbike Titanium Rotor Bolts which saved me 50% in weight from my alloy ones, for all 12 of these bad boys there only 14.4g (1.2g each) and I got me a chain whip too.



Still waiting on ...

Tyres
Tubes
Cassette Removal Tool
WHEELS

Few other bits n bobs, pics as and when santa comes

njee20

I did get me Uberbike Titanium Rotor Bolts which saved me 50% in weight from my alloy ones,

Old ones were steel then. Alu bolts are 1/2 the weight of ti. But very, very soft. I've got some Ashima alloy ones and they're rather prone to rounding.

Anonymous

I thought they were ally but seems your right there steel

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=60906

Anonymous

Discs came today, they look really nice, bit disappointed with the weight side of things, the Ashima rotors are stamped at being 85g but there not, there 88g on both sets of digital scales, why say there something there clearly not, still despite that they look nice and feel a lot better than the chunky Hayes ones.

So my before and after data is as follows just on the discs and bolts :

BEFORE

Discs ................ 228g
Disc Bolts ........... 24g
Total Weight ..... 252g

AFTER

Discs ................ 176g
Disc Bolts .........14.4g
Total Weight .. 190.4g

SAVINGS

Total Saving .... 61.6g
Total Cost ...... £54.49










I must say there is a real feel of quality to the new discs and while inside am saying its just not worth 50 quid to save 60g, I really like the new discs over the Hayes ones which feel just too big and heavy, the Ashima ones have been milled as much as possble, their a work of art 8)

Next step, tyres tube and wheels, come on CRC and Superstars pull ya finger out, sick of waiting for delivery...

booyaka

i'm sick of waiting for your new wheels as well!! haha

allthegearnoidea

Oh no! There a Whopping 3g over weight!!
What size was the weight quoted for?? You do know complaining of the 3g is treading in Pure weightweenie catagory! :-D

njee20

KCNC Razors are lighter (my 160mm was 74g IIRC), and Ashima are about to release some lighter ones. Sorry!

Anonymous

lol @ booyaka well I had a email from Superstars saying there is a huge demand and there having to hand build them and they will ship when there built, so god knows when that will be :shock:

Yes allthegear they stole a whole 6g from me which in money is about £6 worth its no biggie really to me but it just seems wrong to stamp and advertise something thats blantantly not the case.

NOOO! njee20 why didnt you tell me before ! lol... grrrr... maybe you can advise me on seatpost and stem then to save more weight, when they time comes though, need to pay for this lil lot first.

This was me bike on the scales, before I started messin, I'll re-do this to get a true weight when me new wheels come, from my calculations it should come in about 10.3kg, so if I can lose 350g from somewhere I can have a 9.??kg bike and I'd be happy at that

Anonymous

Goodies came today from CRC, I got me Rocket Ron Tyres, Maxxis Fly Weight Rubes, so all that I am waiting on now is my wheelset from Superstars then am back on the road am hoping I get them this week, I mean, how long does it take to handbuild a set of wheels?

mrmonkfinger

CubeCrazy wrote:

I mean, how long does it take to handbuild a set of wheels?

how straight do you want them?

Anonymous

Hmm good point... I think I'll nah bother um for another week yet then

booyaka

not tempted to go tubeless?

Anonymous

Yes I sure was but with the tubes only weighing 95gms I figured theres not much if any weight saving going tubeless and it could be a potentially worse problem if I get a slash in my tyre when out and about.

I dont really know enough about tubeless technology yet to trust it, and I thought it may be easier to just patch a puncture rather than deal with all the mess of tubeless.

Anonymous

Finally ! .. wheels came today, took me ages to get the tyres on, that was the hardest part.

So actual weight was 11.8kg before, 10.4kg after, so I lost 1.4k for 400 quid

Went out and did a steady 18 miler, despite it 'only' being 1.4kg I did notice it, it now climbs hills like a mountain goat, the tyres I aint so happy about, there very soft and feel like there sliding about all over the place, maybe its something I will get used to.

So yeah am happy with um and I think it was worth the cost in the end.

So I just need to lose 450g and I will have a 9.??kg bike which would be nice, but the only things I havent replaced on the bike are the seat, seatpost and chainset so am hoping I can shave off another 450g in time with those then am done and I can just concentrate on ridin it