Hey Folks,
I love to climb . Long fire roads, tight switchbacks, rocky technical, the steeper the better ! The problem is that you gotta go back down sometime and if you're gonna descend you might as well have fun . Does anyone have any ideas for lightening my XC bike? I was thinking maybe a Ti bottom bracket or drilling more holes in my bashguard. I want to lose weight but I'm concerned about sacrificing strength and stiffness(I weigh 220lbs ). My current set-up is just a hair over 50 lbs .

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You're not worthy!

dude, no offense, but i hope you're joking. I mean to start with, if you were really THAT concerned with weight but still wanted a long travel bike, the banshee was a bad choice. Those things are awesome hucking bikes, but even for a long travel bike they're tanks. Best bet if you are serious, get lighter tires.

Dude . I'm not kidding. I'm currently running a standard 2.1 tube in the front to shave some weight but every time I run non-dh casing tires I pinch flat all the time . I recently switched to a 24" rear wheel and that shaved about a half pound . I have a little more trouble cleaning some of my favorite switchbacks now but the weight savings is worth it on long steady grades. What's up w/ those Al rotors? I saved a few grams by switching to a 6" rear hayes but the aluminum rotors look like a good idea. Do they hold up on extended descents or do they warp easily? As for the decision to go with the Banshee, I got tired of snapping chainstays on my Uzzi SLX . What is a big fat weight weenie to do?

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You're not worthy!

Are you running a Ti spring on your rear shock, that would take off a lot of wieght, and I know they make them for long travel bikes. Also, I noticed you're running flat pedals, some BMX companies make good flat pedals out of magnesium that are about 3/4 of the weight, (DK Iron Cross pedals are good) Atomic laboratories also makes some pedals from Lucite that are pretty light but real tough. Also, I can't see the bars you're running, but if they're like azonic or some other DH bar, switch to easton carbon DH bars. I doubt you'll break them, and they're about 1/2 the weight.

Why don't you post the complete specs so it's easier to find some possibilities to save some more weight. You could save some weight at the fork: Ti-springs or take the new Magura Thor (2600g), it has an adjustable travel (110-150mm) so you can climb up better but you'll loose 20mm of travel...

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*** www.daedalous.de ***

If you don't do [b]HUGE[/b] drops you can use a new 2003 XTR crank and save [b]LOTS[/b] of weight. If you watch the World cup guys, they even use XTR. Hope that helped