Need to Shed Some Weight!

Rup79

Hi Everyone,

I am new here and wondered if I could get some advice. I have just bought a 2011 Voodoo Bantu and although the bike has a few good components (such as fork and brakes), the bike is a little on the heavy side.

I was wondering whether you could help me decide the best price / weight loss upgrades? I was wondering whether new tyres and wheels would help as I believe the tyres are not folding ones and the wheels I am sure will be budget too......

Many thanks.

rockmonkeysc

Tyres would be the first thing, then forks.
You won't loose much off the wheels.

Rup79

Thanks.

Is there not much weight to lose on changing the wheels?

It currently weighs around the 15kg marker (a little bit heavier than my old Trek 4500) and I would ideally like to get this down by at least 1kg, maybe 2 if possible as I do a lot of XC routes around The Yorkshire Dales.....

Cheers.

The Rookie

Plenty to lose in plenty of places.....
I broke a Bantu, the brakes, bars, stem and seatpost are all reasonable.
Wheels are Formula and used on upto £650 bikes, around 2.1Kg the pair, not brilliant but not at all bad.

Crankset, grips, tyres and tubes are first port of call and will easily lose that 1Kg, although the frame is about 500g heavier than the equivalent Carrera.

Rup79

Thanks for that.

I will invest in some new tyres / tubes, that's easy enough to do for my limited bike knowledge.

When it comes to changing the crank set, is there one you recommend for this bike? One that will be strong but light?

rockmonkeysc

Shimano SLX or XT depending on budget.

poah

tyres would be first port of call - then weigh the rest of things

Wheels - on-one have a set of ryde adrenaline going for £150 that weight about 1660g

Tyres - should be able to get tyres around 600g each for about £60 a pair

tubes - http://www.wiggle.co.uk/geax-mtb-ultralite-inner-tube/ cheap and light

stem, bar, seat post, saddle - all these could be quite heavy and can be bought cheap enough shave quite a few grams. £200

Forks - Manitou minute pro 120mm, 1 1/8 9mm QR should shave around 500-550g off the weight of the bike. £300


£700 to shave off around 1600-1800 grams depending on the weight of components. hugely expensive. The frame probably weighs a ton. maybe cheaper to buy a new frame and transfer components.

Rup79

Wow, £700 is more than I wanted to spend. But thanks, I will certainly look into the tyres and crank set and possibly the wheels going forward.

swod1

i would just ride the bike and see what you dont like about it , probably the tyres, stem length, seat shape etc to start with.

RockmonkeySC wrote:

Shimano SLX or XT depending on budget.

Any idea how much heavier a deore chainset is to slx/xt ?

i've just replaced the whole lot on my trek to a m590 deore, was going to buy slx or xt but for the price i got the deore for £59, i wasnt sure if to pay twice the price to save a few hundred grams in weight. i was upgrading from a alivio m430 though.

Even though the bb wont last long there is a difference going to hollowtech 2.

croptonboy

POAH wrote:

£700 to shave off around 1600-1800 grams depending on the weight of components. hugely expensive. The frame probably weighs a ton. maybe cheaper to buy a new frame and transfer components.

True, an On-One Carbon 456 frame is only £300 (reduced from £500)

poah

SLX is about 100g lighter than the deore crankset including BB. XT is only about 5g lighter than the SLX (triple ring cranks)

Ouija

Like most people have said the tyres are probably the first port of call. Most tyres that come on mountain bikes in that price range weigh over a kilogram. That's a lot of weight at the rims and requires more effort to spin up to speed, decelerate and corner. Going for tyres in the 500g range will make a serious difference to how the bike feels with the added bonus of knocking off 1kg of weight from the overall bike. Schwalbe, Continental etc all do folding tyres in the 500g range, though they can be a bit pricey. If your on a budget, then Michelins "Country" range (country rock, country mud etc) can be had for around the tenner mark and are as light as a feather though not upto the same quality of tyres as the Schwalbe/Continental/Maxxis mentioned.

Wheels are usually the next upgrade. Most are in the 2.4kg range for a average mountain bike but if your willing to spend the money you can get them as low as 1.6kg a set. Almost 800g saving but, unfortunately, most of that isn't at the rim (hub/spokes) so the effect isn't as noticeable as dropping your tyre weight in half.

After that most people would focus on the forks, looking for something cheap and light in the 1.6/1.7kg range, such as Suntour Epicons or the more upmarket air based forks from Rockshox etc. You can pick them up for around the £150 mark if you get them from overseas on ebay or even cheaper if you look for good condition second hand ones.

After that it's just fiddling with the smaller stuff, such as superlight carbon fibre seat posts, bars and stems or lighter weight cassettes mounted on aluminium splines etc. Depending on what type of cranks and bottom bracket your currently running, a small amount of saving can be had there too.

The Rookie

My older Deore weigh in at 100g more than my older but similar age to the Deore XT (circa 2008 9 speed stuff).

Deore will weigh about 400g less than what you have.

Buy preloved, spending £700 to reduce the weight of a £350 bike is crazy, and it won't be as good as a bike you could have bought for £900 in the first place.

Tyres I'd change as they will grip better as well, on-one have Geax on for a goor price, get good reviews, foam grips will save 100g for about £8.

jds_1981

If your reason for losing weight is to improve climbing, people often suggest the cheapest option is a diet.

RyC

Best way to save the weight would be to upgrade the frame, this will give you the biggest weight saving for the cost
i Believe Planet X have some good deals on frames at the moment. or just run that into the ground then upgrade to another bike

passout

Tyres for sure. Maybe the crankset. I wouldn't bother with anything else.

step83

Ill echo what others are saying, tyres will save you around 1Kg and it will change the way the bike feels. I wouldn't go lobbing tons of money at it youll only end up spending money on things you dont need. Try the tyres an go for a ride.
If it feels heavy still get the scales out.
Ive no idea what pedals you have at the minute but i lost 200g just swapping them. Shows you can save on all sorts of random bits.
Try not to get too sucked into weight saving, it gets expensive!

The Rookie

RyC wrote:

Best way to save the weight would be to upgrade the frame, this will give you the biggest weight saving for the cost
i Believe Planet X have some good deals on frames at the moment. or just run that into the ground then upgrade to another bike

Not with a new frame it won't, especially after you cost in the bits you have to change for compatability reasons, you could easily spend £450 to save about 800g!

Ouija

The Rookie wrote:

RyC wrote:

Best way to save the weight would be to upgrade the frame, this will give you the biggest weight saving for the cost
i Believe Planet X have some good deals on frames at the moment. or just run that into the ground then upgrade to another bike

Not with a new frame it won't, especially after you cost in the bits you have to change for compatability reasons, you could easily spend £450 to save about 800g!

+1

Whereas you could spend as little as £24 on some knobbly tyres that weigh 540g and shave off 1kg in weight. Difference in weight between the average unbutted 6060 aluminium frame (2.2kg ish) to a super light carbon frame (1.2kg ish) isn't really that high and costs hundreds of pounds.

97th choice

You're better off shedding weight from yourself, after all if Michele Ferrari recommends it....

RyC

Ouija wrote:

The Rookie wrote:

RyC wrote:

Best way to save the weight would be to upgrade the frame, this will give you the biggest weight saving for the cost
i Believe Planet X have some good deals on frames at the moment. or just run that into the ground then upgrade to another bike

Not with a new frame it won't, especially after you cost in the bits you have to change for compatability reasons, you could easily spend £450 to save about 800g!

+1

Whereas you could spend as little as £24 on some knobbly tyres that weigh 540g and shave off 1kg in weight. Difference in weight between the average unbutted 6060 aluminium frame (2.2kg ish) to a super light carbon frame (1.2kg ish) isn't really that high and costs hundreds of pounds.

I was refering to their carbon frames, Dont know what the Quality is like but they have them on sale for around 250 quid

Cqc

Going 1x9 or 1x10 will lose you up to 500g...

poah

Cqc wrote:

Going 1x9 or 1x10 will lose you up to 500g...

and loose a lot of gears 1x9 or 1x10 is nothing more than a marketing ploy to make you feel like a pro rider -

The Rookie

RyC wrote:

Ouija wrote:

The Rookie wrote:

RyC wrote:

Best way to save the weight would be to upgrade the frame, this will give you the biggest weight saving for the cost
i Believe Planet X have some good deals on frames at the moment. or just run that into the ground then upgrade to another bike

Not with a new frame it won't, especially after you cost in the bits you have to change for compatability reasons, you could easily spend £450 to save about 800g!

+1

Whereas you could spend as little as £24 on some knobbly tyres that weigh 540g and shave off 1kg in weight. Difference in weight between the average unbutted 6060 aluminium frame (2.2kg ish) to a super light carbon frame (1.2kg ish) isn't really that high and costs hundreds of pounds.

I was refering to their carbon frames, Dont know what the Quality is like but they have them on sale for around 250 quid

And will the other components fit, seat post, clamp, front mech, cables and hoses, forks?

POAH wrote:

Cqc wrote:

Going 1x9 or 1x10 will lose you up to 500g...

and loose a lot of gears 1x9 or 1x10 is nothing more than a marketing ploy to make you feel like a pro rider -

Rubbish, you only lose about the 2 tallest and lowest gears, for many many riders 1x works just fine, including unfit old and slightly overweight me.

thelonegroover

Depends what you weigh yourself, obviously the heavier the rider, the less advantage you get from small gains on the bike. Don’t forget the bike represents only a fraction of the total weight.

poah

The Rookie wrote:

Rubbish, you only lose about the 2 tallest and lowest gears, for many many riders 1x works just fine, including unfit old and slightly overweight me.

not for me

njee20

Works for me too, but not for everyone.

Frame will never be cost effective weight saving though.

chrisrobs

Id save up for a new bike pal.

Jomox

chrisrobs wrote:

Id save up for a new bike pal.

Would do same. Would never spend up to £700 for parts on that frame, may as well get a whole new bike which will be light years ahead in frame quality.

Cqc

I know a lot of people with badly set up front mechs which means that they struggle to change gears at the front, and as a result only ever use the middle ring, yet would never consider going 1x9 or 1x10, so if that is the situation you are in you have nothing to lose...