Raod bike weight shaving

[seaneT1]

I searched and could not find a topic about weight shaving (maybe I did not do it right? ) so I thought I would create one where we discuss ways of shaving weight off of our bikes! ... I only know the basics,which I believe is wheels,groupsets,handlebars,stems and seatposts when possible..so what ways are there

[eliflap-scalpel]

paint !

[Frankie - B]

Shaving paint is a very good one. Esp when your frame has white paint on it. Another is tuning your groupset and putting ti and alloy bolts everywhere.


Tape is for wrapping gifts to your girlfriend, not to hold a freaking tire on!

[seaneT1]

Shaving paint is a very good one. Esp when your frame has white paint on it. Another is tuning your groupset and putting ti and alloy bolts everywhere.


Tape is for wrapping gifts to your girlfriend, not to hold a freaking tire on!

I've heard before about the paint, but for me it's the last place I would look for shaving weight off...a bike must have some style after all

[seaneT1]

Shaving paint is a very good one. Esp when your frame has white paint on it. Another is tuning your groupset and putting ti and alloy bolts everywhere.


Tape is for wrapping gifts to your girlfriend, not to hold a freaking tire on!

also,with the Ti and alloy bolts,will there be any signifficant change in the weight??

[McGilli]

Sometimes people have way more seat post than is needed buried in their frame and you can chop off a few inches...

[dmulligan]

This is one of the main topics of this forum, it is discussed everywhere. That being said rubber is the first place you should look as it gives the best cost/weight savings available.

One thing worth doing is to start a spreadsheet with all of your bike's components and have a column each for claimed and actual weight. Then take your bike apart and weigh each part to find it's actual weigh and add those to another column. Once your actual weight column adds up to the bike's actual weight you are in a great place to be able to make better decisions about impact of weight savings. Since I am not dedicated enough to weigh every part individually I've added a column I called best known weight that takes the actual weight if I specified one otherwise it uses the claimed weight. A few days ago I added one more column that I found to be the most interesting and revealing one yet. It calculates the percentage of the best known weight over the bike's actual weight. This shows me what percentage of the total each component is and how much impact savings each part could possibly give. This is what I found on my close to stock 2014 Cervelo R3:
#1 Frame 13.35%
#2 Rear Williams 30x wheel 12.57%
#3 Ultegra 6800 crankset 10.42%
#4 Front Williams 30x wheel 9.75%
#5 Tyres 5.87%
#6 Brifters 5.79%
#7 Brake calipers 4.56%
#8 Handlebar 3.66%
Wheel (pair) are the #1 weight, no surprise. The claimed crankset weight is #3 is the part I found surprising here. No wonder there is so much talk about crankset. For some reason until I saw this the impact of that thing's weight was lost on me. My tyres are already as light as I want them so don't think much about my number there. The next thing that I realized is once you've picked the low hanging fruit every change is only going to make a small difference.

[seaneT1]

Excactly! it is discused everywhere!...but nowhere concentrated

Thanks for your input...I find it very usefull!!!

[Frankie - B]

seaneT1 can you please use the "post reply" button when you are writing a reply? at the moment you are using the quote function. The reply button sits bottom left of the last post or above the first post.

Many thanks.

[seaneT1]

Will do!

[mrgray]

i am a newb but the approach i am taking is to examine the weight and potential savings of the items i am prepared to change.

photo of bike in question



so items i am prepared to change (current weights in brackets:
- stem (150), bars (210), pedals (206), brakes(272), seat post (210), tape (60), cages (56 for 2), seat (193). computers and mounts (200), tyres schwalbe one 24 mm (580g plus some tufo extreme in rear)

on this basis i am down to one mandible cage from 2 (28g) and have hacked off 30 g of my seat post. also for the time being i will put computer in pocket and instead focus on my environment (had 2 computers and was getting absorbed into the #'s).

down to 6.72 kg.

in examining light weight stem, bars, saddle the rider over 75 kg need not apply. so i have put those on the back burner.

on this basis i am now looking at light brakes. there is 100 g to be saved here. plus ee, m5, thm all look spectacular.