weight loss on bike or self

shiznit76

Hi, does having a bike 1kg lighter make more of a difference than losing 1kg in body weight? Probably a silly questions and simple physics will gibe the answer, just wondered?

darkhairedlord

No.

diamonddog

Lose weight from your body, healthier and better option. You can put the bike on a diet while you lose weight,double benefit.

mrfpb

Being 1kg lighter you get the benefits off the bike as well. So long as your losing fat rather than good stuff (muscle, bone, blood etc) lost body weight is always good.

shiznit76

I can see the health benefits, but performance wise, does a 1kg lighter bike make and difference than losing 1kg of body weight?

imposter2.0

shiznit76 wrote:

I can see the health benefits, but performance wise, does a 1kg lighter bike make and difference than losing 1kg of body weight?

As someone already said - NO.

cgfw201

Also much cheaper to lose 1kg off your body.

imposter2.0

Do one ride carrying two full 500ml bottles. Then do another ride without carrying two 500ml bottles. That's how much difference losing 1kg off the bike will make.

pilot_pete

If you think about it 1kg is 1kg, so at first glance, no difference.

However, losing 1kg off the bike is simply that, nothing else. Losing 1kg off yourself (if you are above your ideal weight) will help not only because you are 1kg lighter, but a small performance gain will be possible too (assuming you train). It is a marginal gain, but to visualise it, think of someone 10kg overweight training on a bike who loses that 10kg and gets to his/ her ideal cycling weight. Their performance will likely have gone up (power to weight ratio).

It does depend on the type of riding you are doing mind you, for example a track sprinter doing a BMI test would probably appear to be in the overweight category, just like a body builder would, but they are in fact built for explosive power. If you are talking pro road cyclist they would probably fall into the underweight category for the opposite reason - they are built for endurance and lugging excess weight around has been proven to be detrimental to their overall performance.

If you ride predominantly flat rides you will see less of a benefit over riding hilly courses with your 1kg weight loss due to the fact that when climbing you are working against gravity and that extra 1kg combines with the force of gravity to hold you back requiring more power to maintain the same speed than if you were 1kg lighter.

As others have said, losing weight from your body can have many, many other health benefits from staving off type 2 diabetes, reduced visceral fat, better heart health, better cardio vascular fitness, more mobility (you might even be able to get a much more aero tuck position significantly cutting your frontal area and finding a huge performance gain!) and more of a feeling of wellbeing.

I’m trying to lose a few kgs of the body currently ready for summer and to improve my hill climbing.

PP

darkhairedlord

Pilot Pete wrote:

If you think about it 1kg is 1kg, so at first glance, no difference.

However, losing 1kg off the bike is simply that, nothing else. Losing 1kg off yourself (if you are above your ideal weight) will help not only because you are 1kg lighter, but a small performance gain will be possible too (assuming you train). It is a marginal gain, but to visualise it, think of someone 10kg overweight training on a bike who loses that 10kg and gets to his/ her ideal cycling weight. Their performance will likely have gone up (power to weight ratio).

It does depend on the type of riding you are doing mind you, for example a track sprinter doing a BMI test would probably appear to be in the overweight category, just like a body builder would, but they are in fact built for explosive power. If you are talking pro road cyclist they would probably fall into the underweight category for the opposite reason - they are built for endurance and lugging excess weight around has been proven to be detrimental to their overall performance.

If you ride predominantly flat rides you will see less of a benefit over riding hilly courses with your 1kg weight loss due to the fact that when climbing you are working against gravity and that extra 1kg combines with the force of gravity to hold you back requiring more power to maintain the same speed than if you were 1kg lighter.

As others have said, losing weight from your body can have many, many other health benefits from staving off type 2 diabetes, reduced visceral fat, better heart health, better cardio vascular fitness, more mobility (you might even be able to get a much more aero tuck position significantly cutting your frontal area and finding a huge performance gain!) and more of a feeling of wellbeing.

I’m trying to lose a few kgs of the body currently ready for summer and to improve my hill climbing.

PP

Very very marginal. I'd guess most on here an not elite athletes and could lose 10kg. Then the benefits will be clear, even on the flat as you now have lower bars and finally reach the drops.

drlodge

Losing weight off the rims will have added benefits, but probably not much difference in reality. 1kg is 1kg, just on the rim you have rotational as well as linear momentum savings.

fenix

I'm going to say its better to lose the weight off yourself.

1. Its not going to cost anything - if anything it'll save you money and you can then spend that on the bike.
2. You'll be very slightly less chunky - so an aero benefit.
3. Your body will be more efficient. You'll be able to regulate heat quicker with less fat.
4. A big waistline is one of the markers of a shorter life - you do want to cycle for longer.

You'll also be better at running or skiing or whatever - so fit for more sports than if you'd taken the weight off the bike.

darkhairedlord

drlodge wrote:

Losing weight off the rims will have added benefits, but probably not much difference in reality. 1kg is 1kg, just on the rim you have rotational as well as linear momentum savings.

Popcorn hour again...

ryan_w-2

Buy stuff for you bike. It’s fun and makes you want to ride it more.

This will then actually start to benefit you and your riding.

After spending £10k+ on my race bike, it took a while to sink in that the 107kg lump on top of it was slowing it down...

I’m 85/86kg now, bike is sh!t hot, winning all round.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

http://www.bikeradar.com/road/gear/arti ... ter-50206/

Article from last year with laughable testing process!

pilot_pete

darkhairedlord wrote:

Very very marginal. I'd guess most on here an not elite athletes and could lose 10kg. Then the benefits will be clear, even on the flat as you now have lower bars and finally reach the drops.

Indeed, that was the point I was making - there will be a very marginal gain with 1kg, but to visualise it it becomes obvious when think about shedding 10kg from an overweight cyclist!

PP

joey54321

Loosing it from yourself (provided you aren't already on the limit of being too light, which I would guess most amateurs aren't) will be more beneficial because that fat is no longer demanding oxygen so your aerobic system can deliver that to working muscles instead. It'll also make you more aero as you will be 'slightly' smaller (especially if you lose bulk from the shoulders/arms).

mrfpb

Pilot Pete wrote:

darkhairedlord wrote:

Very very marginal. I'd guess most on here an not elite athletes and could lose 10kg. Then the benefits will be clear, even on the flat as you now have lower bars and finally reach the drops.

Indeed, that was the point I was making - there will be a very marginal gain with 1kg, but to visualise it it becomes obvious when think about shedding 10kg from an overweight cyclist!

PP

My 12kg CdF I bought three years ago, replaced a 15kg hybrid. It's quite a heavy bike. However I am now 10kg lighter than I was when I bought it, and feel much better. I don't think getting a lighter bike would have made as much difference.

Another (negligible) marginal gain - when the rider loses weight, the centre of gravity of bike + rider gets lower, when the bike gets lighter the CoG gets higher - so the rider losing weight makes the bike+rider more stable than the bike losing weight.

alex222

Kg off the body might even make your more aero.

DMHR2018

I think it depends how you lose the weight. If the 1kg weight loss comes just from dieting, then I'd think the difference between the 2 would be tiny. But if you lose that 1kg by increasing your training load and keeping your diet constant then that 1kg weight loss has a training benefit attached that would increase your performance.

fat daddy

shiznit76 wrote:

Hi, does having a bike 1kg lighter make more of a difference than losing 1kg in body weight? Probably a silly questions and simple physics will gibe the answer, just wondered?

1kg .. no

now 2kg ..

I am going to go against the grain here and say YES, a lighter bike does make more of a difference to me when talking about 2kg.

I can tell no difference in cycling when I weighed 75kg or currently at 72kg ... but thats probably because it takes 3-6 weeks to implement that change and you dont notice the difference.

But shed 2kg from your bike ... and its far more nimble and livelier ... yeah its no quicker, but its more fun to throw about when you are riding.

Seeing however that body weightloss is free ... just do both

veronese68

Depending on your willpower losing it off the bike may be easier, certainly not cheaper though.

keef66

Just through intermittent fasting I lost 8kg which was over 10% of my starting bodyweight. That made a big difference to my climbing ability. More importantly I finally looked good in lycra. Well I think I do...

Dropping 8kg from the bike wouldn't leave me with many components.

My carbon summer bike must weigh at least a kilo less than my alu winter one with guards and lights, but I'm not any faster on it. It feels a bit sprightlier and more fun to throw around, but that could well be all in my head, or a consequence of the warmer weather and having to wear less kit.

cookeeemonster

I've had a few bikes (and wheels) or varying weights since I started cycling 6 years ago and every time I've gone from one bike to a lighter bike I've felt the difference - much nicer to ride, less fatiguing and ultimately faster to varying degrees...but bear in mind, thats mostly (not all) for a long stop/start commute - and weight does impact accelerations both fatigue wise and with average speed if you're doing a lot of them (and putting the effort in, not talking about slowly accelerating from standstill. Also if you're mostly pootling around you probably wont notice much if anything, you need to be putting the effort in to notice the difference in my opinion, you wont just magically get faster).

But as with the others, it's far better to lose the weight from yourself if you're carrying excess every time for the reasons mentioned (then buy the lighter bike!)

simon_masterson

CookeeeMonster wrote:

and weight does impact accelerations both fatigue wise and with average speed if you're doing a lot of them (and putting the effort in, not talking about slowly accelerating from standstill).

Unless you're talking about very large differences in weight, the actual difference in effort required isn't very much.

cookeeemonster

Simon Masterson wrote:

CookeeeMonster wrote:

and weight does impact accelerations both fatigue wise and with average speed if you're doing a lot of them (and putting the effort in, not talking about slowly accelerating from standstill).

Unless you're talking about very large differences in weight, the actual difference in effort required isn't very much.

Probably a kg or two tbh. And I am talking about a lot of them i.e. blasting away from lights and so on every minute for an hour / hour and a half (might be exaggerating there, but talking about a long city commute)

keef66

You're having to accelerate the mass of you plus bike. Say you weigh 70kg and the heavier bike is 9kg. Dropping to a 7kg bike will reduce your combined weight by 2.5%, so it could conceivably make a small difference over many repeated stop / starts.

For my kind of all day recreational bimbling I'd not really notice.

w00dster

Here's something I find slightly interesting but will bore everyone else.....
I have a 25 minute climb that I do (in Snowdonia), its a Strava 3rd category climb, has some small 20% sections, but generally about 10 to 12%. I've done this climb fairly regularly so I know it well.
My previous bike was a Trek Emonda SLR, total weight about 6.2kgs. Current bike I rode the climb on last week is approx. 8.2kgs.
I'm slightly heavier than last year, by approx. 1 kg. I was 67kgs last summer. Last week I had full winter kit on, probably carrying close to 1kg extra with minitool, tubes and extra CO2.
My Strava PB was set last weekend on the heavier bike. My fitness hasn't improved. Time wise there is very little in it, but its interesting to note that the fastest time was on the heavy bike.
The difference between the two bikes is gearing. 50/34 and 11-32 on the heavy bike and 52/38 and 11-28 on the lighter bike.
Now I know that I could have had the 50/34 11-32 on the lighter bike, but for me it was interesting to see the correlation between weight and gearing and seeing where a tipping point in performance. The light bike with 52/38 was used for crit racing and also normally had 11/23 or 11/25 on it, ideal for this use.

ryan_w-2

You must have been going half arsed on the Emonda then, since the gearing would have forced you to be faster.

That’s why a majority of the KOMs on the world tour climbs were set many moons ago, when guys were riding 39/23 and were forced to smash out the hills.

Low ratio gearing makes it easier but slower.

w00dster

keef66 wrote:

You're having to accelerate the mass of you plus bike. Say you weigh 70kg and the heavier bike is 9kg. Dropping to a 7kg bike will reduce your combined weight by 2.5%, so it could conceivably make a small difference over many repeated stop / starts.

But what is that in terms of real effort? I'm not disagreeing, just not sure its hugely noticeable. When I do my commute its very rare that I go full gas away from every light, so while I am accelerating, would I notice any actual difference because of the weight?

If we take this to crit racing with lots of slowing and then accelerating, I can see that a light bike would be beneficial, but even so it would be interesting again to see the difference in energy needed to accelerate a 7kg bike vs an 8kg bike (and then a separate chart showing energy or power needed to sustain that power for 20 seconds)

And now to add confusion that I'm sure there is some logic or even physics to answer....How come in crit races the heavier guys find the sprint style circuits easier than me? I'm generalising here, but I tend to finish ahead of heavier team mates on road races which tend to be rolling roads, but on circuits with lots of slow corners and sprints I struggle in comparison. So it appears to me that heavier people can cope better with sprints and less so with lumpy and rolling roads?

thegreatdivide

darkhairedlord wrote:

Very very marginal. I'd guess most on here an not elite athletes and could lose 10kg. Then the benefits will be clear, even on the flat as you now have lower bars and finally reach the drops.

How not to make friends on the internet.