Does the weight of your bike really make a difference?

shortfall

ugo.santalucia said:

shortfall said:

webboo said:

I wonder how many of the folk who say a light bike makes no difference have ridden a sub 7 kilo bike for any length of time.

I don't see anybody claiming it makes no difference, just a few of us questioning how much difference it makes in the real world to people who aren't racing. If you have <10% body fat and you're well trained then you're going to buy the lightest bike you can afford because it might make the difference in a race. If you're that middle aged guy with a bit of a paunch who averages 14 mph and you just want a really light bike because you can afford it, then knock yourself out, just don't expect to start dropping your mates on every climb like you're Pantini.</p>

What if you are somewhere in between? What if you are nearly 50 but the body fat is 13% and you drop all your mates easily and routinely are in the top 2-3% of meaningful segments on Strava? Should you aim for a nice light bike or you shouldn't because ultimately you are not going to win any race?

Dunno mate. If you can afford it and you think it's going to help you win some hill climbs or whatever I'm not going to argue with you. I'm generalizing when I make my point obviously and there's going to be shades of grey between the 2 examples I gave, but I stand by the argument that people obsess about shaving a pound or so off their bike like it's the only thing holding them back.

ugo.santalucia

shortfall said:

Dunno mate. If you can afford it and you think it's going to help you win some hill climbs or whatever I'm not going to argue with you. I'm generalizing when I make my point obviously and there's going to be shades of grey between the 2 examples I gave, but I stand by the argument that people obsess about shaving a pound or so off their bike like it's the only thing holding them back.

No, I can't. We have been priced out of that market. It is perfectly possible to offer a 7 kg bike, rim braked, with Ultegra in the 2 grand bracket, but manufacturers don't want to do that, otherwise there would be no incentive to get the 7 kg disc brake Di2 HM bike that costs 9 grand and in essence it's the same thing, over engineered to stop heavier riders hitting the dry stone wall at the bottom of Buttertubs. I made the same point in the other thread about the Emonda. It's a cartel, they are all interested in selling you the more expensive offerings, so there is no incentive to make more affordable light bikes

shortfall

ugo.santalucia said:

shortfall said:

Dunno mate. If you can afford it and you think it's going to help you win some hill climbs or whatever I'm not going to argue with you. I'm generalizing when I make my point obviously and there's going to be shades of grey between the 2 examples I gave, but I stand by the argument that people obsess about shaving a pound or so off their bike like it's the only thing holding them back.

No, I can't. We have been priced out of that market. It is perfectly possible to offer a 7 kg bike, rim braked, with Ultegra in the 2 grand bracket, but manufacturers don't want to do that, otherwise there would be no incentive to get the 7 kg disc brake Di2 HM bike that costs 9 grand and in essence it's the same thing, over engineered to stop heavier riders hitting the dry stone wall at the bottom of Buttertubs. I made the same point in the other thread about the Emonda. It's a cartel, they are all interested in selling you the more expensive offerings, so there is no incentive to make more affordable light bikes

Ok, fair comment. How about buying one of those Dengfu or whatever they're called Chinese frames and building it up to your own spec with second hand or end of season sale components? I would've thought that could easily be achieved under 2k? Or Ribble/Merlin etc?

ETA I'm usually somewhere around 17 stone and I manage alright with rim brakes, even on carbon wheels and I live in the Yorkshire Dales so plenty of fast descents. I don't disagree with you about manufacturers trying to force us down the disc route so they can gouge us for more £s, just making the point that carrying a bit of tub isn't automatically a requirement for discs.

shortfall

Ugo if you want to make yourself really angry it's worth watching some of Hambinis videos where he goes after some of the supposedly high end frame and wheel manufacturers for the state of the engineering and quality control on some of their supposedly premium products. The only thing premium about some of them is the price it would seem. I guess you've seen his stuff already though?

denis992

shortfall said:

Ugo if you want to make yourself really angry it's worth watching some of Hambinis videos where he goes after some of the supposedly high end frame and wheel manufacturers for the state of the engineering and quality control on some of their supposedly premium products. The only thing premium about some of them is the price it would seem. I guess you've seen his stuff already though?

The "Luescher Teknik" youtube site is "worse". He actually chops up the frames and shows you what is wrong. Some of Hambini's analysis can be taken with a pinch of salt, but when you actually have a cut up frame looking like it was laid up by the trainee/intern but still costing £4K, it is pretty difficult to argue!

ugo.santalucia

I have a shortlist of brands I am happy to buy from for various reasons, some are cheap (Dolan, Ribble), some are premium and I can no longer afford (Colnago, Specialized, Trek)... other brands I don't even want to know about (Canyon, Cervelo among the premium.. Planet X and Genesis among the "budget").

Definitively never going to buy direct from China, for a number of reasons.

morstar

What strikes me most about this thread is the total contrast to triathletes.
I come from a cycling background but have done a dozen or so triathlons from Olympic to Iron distance.
Triathletes are all totally obsessed with aero bikes irrespective of the fact they may then stack the handle bars to a sit up and beg position.
Meanwhile roadies still extoll weight is king.
The bike, rider, route and position is a complex system.
Unless you actually do comprehensive testing that isolates a single factor, what a lot of opinion is based on is feel.
A6.5 Kg bike weighted up to 8.5Kg may still ride quicker than the 8.5Kg bike due to stiffness or position.

Ben6899

Assuming it's not excessively heavy, I'd rather have a bike that handles well and feels astute over something lightweight and skittish.

pblakeney

Ben6899 said:

Assuming it's not excessively heavy, I'd rather have a bike that handles well and feels astute over something lightweight and skittish.

And comfortable too if I'm spending 7 hours on it and not racing.

Ben6899

pblakeney said:

Ben6899 said:

Assuming it's not excessively heavy, I'd rather have a bike that handles well and feels astute over something lightweight and skittish.

And comfortable too if I'm spending 7 hours on it and not racing.

Precisely.

ugo.santalucia

pblakeney said:

And comfortable too if I'm spending 7 hours on it and not racing.

This is an interesting one... obviously if you are touring, you want a comfortable setup, but if you are talking about doing long Sportives, or Audax or whatever, then I guess the point you do these things is because you enjoy the feeling of pain, so why taking it away by trying to be "comfortable"? I did a few long audax and on occasions I have been on the bike for 18 hours, with very short breaks... it hurts regardless of bike, saddle, bars, pedals, shoes, contact points, shocks, tyre pressure and whatever... it just hurts... when you stop enjoying the pain, you don't look for the holy grail of the comfortable bike, but rather give up doing these things and do different things.

I used to enjoy the sheer pain of riding on the French Pave', now I no longer enjoy it, so I don't try to do it on a full suss MTB, I just don't enter these rides anymore

Ben6899

I think pain in muscles is acceptable - I don't want numb fingers, a bad back and sore sitbones though.

ugo.santalucia

Ben6899 said:

I think pain in muscles is acceptable - I don't want numb fingers, a bad back and sore sitbones though.

they come with the distance.... it's more a case of finding the correct setup rather than the "holy grail" of the comfortable bike

pblakeney

ugo.santalucia said:

Ben6899 said:

I think pain in muscles is acceptable - I don't want numb fingers, a bad back and sore sitbones though.

they come with the distance.... it's more a case of finding the correct setup rather than the "holy grail" of the comfortable bike

It is finding your personal compromise. The point was that looking for the ultimate in performance when not racing will come at a price in terms of pain.

zest28

Ben6899 said:

Assuming it's not excessively heavy, I'd rather have a bike that handles well and feels astute over something lightweight and skittish.

I absolutely agree with this. I had a 5.8kg lightweight bike and it just wasn’t fun to ride. Sure, it was easier to get a KOM on a few climbs here, but I really did not enjoy riding it.

My current 7.5kg aero bike with 60mm (and disc brakes to protect my carbon wheels from wearing out) is so much nicer to ride. Very stable even on high speed descents even.

zest28

morstar said:

What strikes me most about this thread is the total contrast to triathletes.
I come from a cycling background but have done a dozen or so triathlons from Olympic to Iron distance.
Triathletes are all totally obsessed with aero bikes irrespective of the fact they may then stack the handle bars to a sit up and beg position.
Meanwhile roadies still extoll weight is king.
The bike, rider, route and position is a complex system.
Unless you actually do comprehensive testing that isolates a single factor, what a lot of opinion is based on is feel.
A6.5 Kg bike weighted up to 8.5Kg may still ride quicker than the 8.5Kg bike due to stiffness or position.

This is vert true. My 7.5kg aero bike is much faster than my previous 5.8kg lightweight (except for climbs, but overall it is significantly faster).

I honestly find lightweight bikes a waste of money. My gravel bike with the same carbon wheelset was just as fast as my lightweight 5.8kg bike except in climbing. Atleast my aero bike beats my gravel bike in everything.

Robi55

As a number of people here have said, it's a factor but by no means as big a deal as some roadies like to make out, or obsess over. It;s good to see the focus of the industry shifting towards aero, comfort, compliance etc. Many of today's often very expensive disc road bikes are as heavy as many much cheaper rimmed braked bikes from 10 years ago: one of my bikes is a 2009 triple-butted alu Wilier which I paid £900 for and in standard spec is only a shade over 9kg. That said, I did upgrade the wheels which made a small difference to its climbing. The wheels is the only area I would ever consider upgrading if weight was an issue. Otherwise as long as you've got a lower enough cog, you'll be fine.

brundonbianchi

On the flat, aero trumps weight. Going up hills, aero is surprisingly still important, but weight is more important. Weight is still fairly important on the flats as well, as the less of it you have to accelerate and decelerate, the easier it is to maintain momentum and speed, especially if there are corners and lumps involved. There’s a lot more to it though, it’s not just the weight that’s critical, the stiffness and compliance contribute a lot too.

itboffin

webboo said:

I wonder how many of the folk who say a light bike makes no difference have ridden a sub 7 kilo bike for any length of time.

My Cervelo R5 is 6.2kg it’s my lightest bike and slower than two other bikes my Scott which is 7-8 and my CAAD12 which is 8+ the CAAD is easily faster than the others, I ride my Scott the most and when it comes to descending the Cervelo is by far the worse too light if you ask me, I think the reason the CAAD is the fastest is down to the smaller ratio cassette which means I have to work harder, to that end I’ve a smaller cassette ready to go you know in the interests of science.

I also changed all my bikes to mid-compact 52/36 primarily because the 34 of a compact meant I wasn’t using it as much.

Losing 8+kg recently has helped my endurance but not speed flat or climbing.

zest28

brundonbianchi said:

On the flat, aero trumps weight. Going up hills, aero is surprisingly still important, but weight is more important. Weight is still fairly important on the flats as well, as the less of it you have to accelerate and decelerate, the easier it is to maintain momentum and speed, especially if there are corners and lumps involved. There’s a lot more to it though, it’s not just the weight that’s critical, the stiffness and compliance contribute a lot too.

Weight is not relevant on the flats, it is all about power and aero. And if there are alot of corners, you need an excellent anaerobic capacity and neuromuscular power. If you see who are excellent in TT, it is guys like Fabio Cancellara and Rohan Dennis and they are not the lightest guys.

You also see GC riders like Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas defeating lightweight climbers like Quintana and Egan Bernal in the TT, while Froome and Thomas are heavier riders.

The only place were lightweight climbers like Quintana and Egan Bernal have an advantage is in climbs.

ugo.santalucia

zest28 said:

brundonbianchi said:

On the flat, aero trumps weight. Going up hills, aero is surprisingly still important, but weight is more important. Weight is still fairly important on the flats as well, as the less of it you have to accelerate and decelerate, the easier it is to maintain momentum and speed, especially if there are corners and lumps involved. There’s a lot more to it though, it’s not just the weight that’s critical, the stiffness and compliance contribute a lot too.

Weight is not relevant on the flats, it is all about power and aero. And if there are alot of corners, you need an excellent anaerobic capacity and neuromuscular power. If you see who are excellent in TT, it is guys like Fabio Cancellara and Rohan Dennis and they are not the lightest guys.

You also see GC riders like Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas defeating lightweight climbers like Quintana and Egan Bernal in the TT, while Froome and Thomas are heavier riders.

The only place were lightweight climbers like Quintana and Egan Bernal have an advantage is in climbs.

That's the theory... however, I often wonder why it is significantly harder to push a shopping trolley when it's full...

itboffin

I take back my comment about climbing not being easier after a lot of weight loss, lost a fair bit more weight and riding up hill is tons easier, I’ve not tried increasing my speed whilst climbing yet that’s next week, these last two weeks have been resting with light effort and low miles.

pblakeney

itboffin said:

I take back my comment about climbing not being easier after a lot of weight loss, lost a fair bit more weight and riding up hill is tons easier, I’ve not tried increasing my speed whilst climbing yet that’s next week, these last two weeks have been resting with light effort and low miles.

As I pointed out up thread anyone with a smart turbo can find out simply by dropping their weight in app and riding a favourite route at their average pace, or at average effort and find out how much quicker.
Digital doping is very much real.

darkhairedlord

Aero is more important in the hills.
If you go up, you have to come back down and the gains here are exponential.

pblakeney

darkhairedlord said:

Aero is more important in the hills.
If you go up, you have to come back down and the gains here are exponential.

Only if you are racing.
Very few on this thread actually race.

brundonbianchi

zest28 said:

brundonbianchi said:

On the flat, aero trumps weight. Going up hills, aero is surprisingly still important, but weight is more important. Weight is still fairly important on the flats as well, as the less of it you have to accelerate and decelerate, the easier it is to maintain momentum and speed, especially if there are corners and lumps involved. There’s a lot more to it though, it’s not just the weight that’s critical, the stiffness and compliance contribute a lot too.

Weight is not relevant on the flats, it is all about power and aero. And if there are alot of corners, you need an excellent anaerobic capacity and neuromuscular power. If you see who are excellent in TT, it is guys like Fabio Cancellara and Rohan Dennis and they are not the lightest guys.

You also see GC riders like Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas defeating lightweight climbers like Quintana and Egan Bernal in the TT, while Froome and Thomas are heavier riders.

The only place were lightweight climbers like Quintana and Egan Bernal have an advantage is in climbs.

I agree with you.

shimanobottombracket

bompington said:

I always like to finish the water in my bottle before the last climb of the day so its weight in the bottle cage doesn't affect the bike so much.

That strategy would work better if you went for a piss first, but not into your bottle.

brundonbianchi

shimanobottombracket said:

bompington said:

I always like to finish the water in my bottle before the last climb of the day so its weight in the bottle cage doesn't affect the bike so much.

That strategy would work better if you went for a piss first, but not into your bottle.

Quite right. Piss in someone else’s bidon.

mr_eddy

If you assume that total weight (rider + Kit + Bike) = 100kg

Dropping 500g with a new set of hoops would save 0.5% compared to original so will make almost no difference to an average 2 hour bike ride - literally you would probably gain maybe 100m in distance.

Feel however is different, personally lighter weight components especially things like wheels / tyres / mechs etc I think give a noticeable improvement but not because they are lighter because they are generally higher quality - Typically ligher stuff = better quality/smoother etc. Not always but most of the time.

Eg. A £800 set of wheels may only be 200g lighter than a £200 set of wheels but they will 'feel' nicer because the bearings will be smoother and just better quality in general.

So I think a lighter bike will make a difference to your enjoyment but almost certainly NOT to your speed.

* Caveat if you are a proper racer and do TT's etc and have 5% body fat etc then saving 500g could give you the few seconds required to win a race but most cyclist are not racers , for most people easiest way to save weight it to change diet.

zest28

I disagree. I used to have a light weight climbing bike and that thing was not fun to ride on. Very twichy and unstable at high speed.

My "heavy" aero bike is much more enjoyable to ride on, as it is on rails.