Light crankset

Fars666

Hey all,

I'm trying to reduce some weight on my moongose xr pro 29' mtb. Already got a new fork and rear shock and handbar. Not quite sure which crankset to get. I want it to be as light as possible and probably would get outside crank case but not sure which one to get. What would you recommend guys ? :roll:

steve_sordy

Are you tubeless yet?

The Rookie

External bearing to budget, Shimano Deore will offer a useful saving, used X0 offer good bang for the buck.

But decent tyres setup tubeless will give you a much better weight saving for the money in conjunction with more grip and lower rolling resistance as well as lower inertia.

Or get a decent used frame to start with, big saving there.

njee20

Race Face Next SL are the obvious choice, but as others are eluding to I’d not bother unless you’ve already done much cheaper things.

02gf74

Yes, next lp are lightest before going to bespoke carbon fibre specials, but are stupidly expensive plus have some reliability issues.
. Next is sram xx1 and x01, available in both bb30 and gxp flavours.

. The first place to start to lose weight is wheels and tyres , then look at stem, bars and seatpost, cheap Chinese carbon parts that are also reliable can be gotten from ebay 10 for stem, 15 bars and similar for seatpost.

njee20

I'm a big advocate of Chinese parts (two frames and seatposts, 3 sets of wheels), but I've seen some really poor bars, I wouldn't fit £10 Chinese bars to a mountain bike, I'd spend a bit more from a known seller. YMMV.

02gf74

njee20 wrote:

, I wouldn't fit £10 Chinese bars to a mountain bike, I'd spend a bit more from a known seller. YMMV.

These are the ones I have fitted, eBay item 222520107165 and 272950889815., something like £12 and £17 respectively. UD matt finish without garish logos, look well made with no problems so far.

cycleclinic

There more weight to be saved in wheels and tyres. Shimano xtr is fairly light, next sl is light. Going lighter is very expensive. There are light Chinese cranks on eBay. No idea what they are like.

steve_sordy

thecycleclinic wrote:

............... Going lighter is very expensive. ............

The last time I made an estimate (about five years ago), it was £1 per gram.

Edit: I have just run the numbers on my purchase of a SRAM Eagle GX groupset to fit onto my YT Capra in place of the 2x10 that was there originally.

It cost me £404 and reduced the weight of the bike by 393g, which is £1.03 per gram. Close enough.

njee20

That of course depends where you're starting from. There will be plenty of savings that are vastly cheaper than that - grips are probably the best on a pure cost per gram basis.

Equally if you've just bought an off the shelf S-Works Epic you're probably at least double that in the main.

The Rookie

As NJEE says, it's much 'easier' as you get lighter to get to a lot more than £1/gram.

CitizenLee

As others have said, for the cheapest and most noticeable weight savings get some lightweight tubeless tyres and a tubeless kit from the likes of Stan's No Tubes. After that I'd look at upgrading the wheels too.

You won't really notice a lighter crankset when riding the bike if you have heavy wheels and tyres, so unless they needs replaced anyway I'd put them near the bottom of the upgrade list.

This would be my order of priorities:

Tyres
Wheels
Forks (go for air forks)
Shock (again, an air shock would be a nice upgrade all round)
Bars/Steam
Cranks/Pedals
Seatpost/Saddle