Road Cycling - 13.6lb bike

I was at my LBS, 360 Cyclesport (great shop BTW), and they have just built up a TIME VXRS and minus pedals they have got it down to 13.6#. They are waiting for the new LOOK Keo pedals, the ti version is only 95g per pedal! This thing is still waiting to be sized so most likely the seat post and fork will be cut down shaving off more grams. All of this wonderfull lightness can be had for about $9,500.00.

i think i saw an 11lb bike online somewhere.. can't remember.

UCI ruled that a road bike can NOT be weight less than 6.8Kg. That is, 15 lbs. Uh, oh. The expensive bike cannot be use in racing. What a waste.

so lets do some math just for fun:
a 19lb Giant with Ultegra can be gotten for for about $1100.. so, for the 5.4lb savings you pay $8,400.. this comes out to around $1,555 a pound.
I can go on a diet and lose 5.5lb in 4 weeks.. Wow! Id make a ton of money.. :)

Legalize his diet plan!!!

Why you haters always hating. Remember for some people $9,500.00 is not a lot of money.

they need to give us some of that then... stupid bush tax plans.

You should go out and earn it.

so lets do some math just for fun:
a 19lb Giant with Ultegra can be gotten for for about $1100.. so, for the 5.4lb savings you pay $8,400.. this comes out to around $1,555 a pound.
I can go on a diet and lose 5.5lb in 4 weeks.. Wow! Id make a ton of money.. :)


Trust me if you lost 5.5# that Giant still wont feel like that TIME. I'm not saying I'd pay it (allthough if I had it.....) but my Orbea Orca at 15.10# would feel much better than that Giant. Besides if I lost 5.5# I'd start to look a little sick!

they need to give us some of that then... stupid bush tax plans.


I love them.

Trust me if you lost 5.5# that Giant still wont feel like that TIME. I'm not saying I'd pay it (allthough if I had it.....) but my Orbea Orca at 15.10# would feel much better than that Giant. Besides if I lost 5.5# I'd start to look a little sick!


I know what you are saying.. My Custom Eisentraut (http://www.litman.com/bikes/eisentraut.htm) is much a better bike then my Giant, but it is also 3 pound heavier..:) so it is not all about weight.. And thats the point I was trying (my attempt at humor) to make..

RACING? :eek: If I had that bike it wouldnt leave the house...no no Matter of fact I would build a plexiglass box around it and hire 2 armed guards :D

RACING? :eek: If I had that bike it wouldnt leave the house...no no Matter of fact I would build a plexiglass box around it and hire 2 armed guards :D

then what the **** is the point? bikes are made to be ridden.

so lets do some math just for fun:
a 19lb Giant with Ultegra can be gotten for for about $1100.. so, for the 5.4lb savings you pay $8,400.. this comes out to around $1,555 a pound.
I can go on a diet and lose 5.5lb in 4 weeks.. Wow! Id make a ton of money.. :)


Ha! I lost 30lbs over the course of a year just commuting to work via bike.. who wants to start coughing up the money? I'll take paypal.. :p

How can you make a post like this and not show any pictures??...tisk, tisk... :p

Not all weight reduction is equal in effect -- for example, there's a lot of difference between taking a pound off of the rider and reducing rotating mass by taking a pound off of the wheelset of the bike. I'm not trying to argue that it's worth spending thousands to rid the bike of that last pound or two, just saying that there isn't a direct correlation between weight off the rider and weight off the bike.

g'day,

it's largely a mute point anyway, seeing as the UCI won't legalise anything under 6.8kg for racing. The other issue is, of course they can make 'em light, but the manufacturers aren't gunna guarantee them, therefore no-ones gunna buy them. Scott had a proto type bike out last year, I think they called it the CR1 superlight that came in at 4.6kg (10.1lbs)......I bet you can't get a lifetime warranty on technology that 'pushes the envelope' that much!........

cheers,

Hitchy

Ha! I lost 30lbs over the course of a year just commuting to work via bike.. who wants to start coughing up the money? I'll take paypal.. :p
big deal! Since 2001 I lost over 100lb... :) Does PayPal handle such money? :)

You can get a bike just as or almost as light for less money.



it's largely a mute point anyway, seeing as the UCI won't legalise anything under 6.8kg for racing.

Not everybody rides UCI sanctioned events.



The other issue is, of course they can make 'em light, but the manufacturers aren't gunna guarantee them, therefore no-ones gunna buy them. Scott had a proto type bike out last year, I think they called it the CR1 superlight that came in at 4.6kg (10.1lbs)......I bet you can't get a lifetime warranty on technology that 'pushes the envelope' that much!

There are a number of manufactures who make bikes below the UCI weight limit and offer up to lifetime warranties on them.

Even the bike built to start this thread has a lifetime warranty on the frame. The frame isn't even that light, wrench science puts the weight at 2.3lbs (plus you need to add a fork).



Not all weight reduction is equal in effect -- for example, there's a lot of difference between taking a pound off of the rider and reducing rotating mass by taking a pound off of the wheelset of the bike.

I wish people would get a bit better grasp on this concept, a pound removed from the wheels is different than a pound off the frame, a pound off the frame is different than a pound off the rider.

Nobody is going to argue which is better in the long run, being at a "healthier" weight or having an ultra-light bike, but there are reasons why people want these bikes, and a lot of times it isn't just snob appeal.

Andrew

Geez I just posted this because this was a really *****en bike (yes I used the word *****en...I'm old). Yeah you could probably build a bike just as light for less $$$ but it wouldn't be much less. I believe TIME warrantee's the VXRS so that's not an issue either. The LBS didn't build this bike to race it in UCI events. It was and exersize in "how light can I get". I would love to own this thing, it's light, stiff and beautiful.

I always whip this baby out when the light bike topic comes up...

Light Bike @ M2 Racer (http://www.m2racer.com/info.php?entry=bike)

Bah, that thing is heavy!

http://weightweenies.starbike.com/articles.php?ID=21

;)

I wish people would get a bit better grasp on this concept, a pound removed from the wheels is different than a pound off the frame, a pound off the frame is different than a pound off the rider.

Andrew

I think a lot of folks understand it (and also grams off the cranks/pedals provide more benefit than off of the frame for similar reasons as loosing weight from wheels is better than frame (and from tires better than hubs))

But my question for my understanding is how is weight off of frame/non moving parts different than off of body. I don't doubt it as it makes sense (i.e frame moves independenly from body, body moves to change balance, etc.) but is there more detail on this?

Al - who up until yesterday rode a 33.5lbs no shocks mt. bike

Here is an exaple that might help.

Take two cars with identical hp and weight. Now car A wheels weigh 100#'s while car B's weigh 75#. It takes less energy to get the wheels on car B to move. The same is with the wheels on your bike.

Yes it is true that a lighter rider generally has an advantage while climbing (fitness being equal) having to move a lighter machine is also an advantage. If you need to expend less energy to propel the wheels/cranks/pedals you have an advantage over the rider that doesn't.

My 60 cm Orbea Altec Carbon Ultegra equiped Mavic Ksyriam Elite bike weighs 19 pound with pedals and I'm happy with it.

[QUOTE=Ajay213]You can get a bike just as or almost as light for less money.




Not everybody rides UCI sanctioned events.




There are a number of manufactures who make bikes below the UCI weight limit and offer up to lifetime warranties on them.

Even the bike built to start this thread has a lifetime warranty on the frame. The frame isn't even that light, wrench science puts the weight at 2.3lbs (plus you need to add a fork).




I wish people would get a bit better grasp on this concept, a pound removed from the wheels is different than a pound off the frame, a pound off the frame is different than a pound off the rider.

Nobody is going to argue which is better in the long run, being at a "healthier" weight or having an ultra-light bike, but there are reasons why people want these bikes, and a lot of times it isn't just snob appeal.


G'day,

it's easy to mix & match parts from different manufacturers & get a bike that comes under 6.8kg,.....my LBS did it with a 6-13, as an exercise in how low can they go.....this isn't the point. The problem that has made minimum weight requirements a 'mute' point is that there doesn't appear to be,(& i know that you guys will correct me if I'm wrong!), a minimum weight requirement for each component. This leads to the farcical situation of Cannondale making delivering saeco 'bikes' that are well below 6.8kg, & simply adding 'sinkers' to the frame to reach the legal limit.....If this doesn't make a farce of the rule i don't know what does!. The UCI have started 'approving' components for use in racing, but whether that means, in future, that any combination of this 'approved' components is legal, (regardless of the weight), remains to be seen. But that might be to 'clever' a solution for the UCI to cope with. You mentioned, non UCI sanctioned races?.....why would you bother, the UCI is far from perfect, but they are at least consistant & provide a framework for racing as a level playing field. Any road racing outside the UCI umbrella is likely to be 'anything goes'.....didn't they make a movie about that....Rollerball?

Hitchy

if 2.3 lb.s isn't light for a frame.. waht the piss is? i always thought of 3.5 as light.

2.3# is light for a frame. My Orca is 2.2# and it's on the lighter side of the spectrum. There are a few frames out there that are lighter.

Hitchy please note that that weight includes the seat post as it is intergrated. Adding about 4 ounces to the weight of the frame. That would give you frame weight of only 1.15# that's light!

The problem that has made minimum weight requirements a 'mute' point is that there doesn't appear to be,(& i know that you guys will correct me if I'm wrong!), a minimum weight requirement for each component. This leads to the farcical situation of Cannondale making delivering saeco 'bikes' that are well below 6.8kg, & simply adding 'sinkers' to the frame to reach the legal limit.....If this doesn't make a farce of the rule i don't know what does!.

From my understanding, and my own opinion the UCI weight rule is more to provide a level playing field for racers. It keeps the highly funded teams from riding around on 9lb wunder bikes while other teams have to ride around on heavier bikes because they can't afford to outfit a team with $10k+ bikes (building a light bike is easy, building a light bike to sustain the kind of miles these guys do is more difficult and expensive). So now we have teams with light frames, but they have to weigh them down to meet the rules, so whatever advantage they had is now gone.



You mentioned, non UCI sanctioned races?.....why would you bother, the UCI is far from perfect, but they are at least consistant & provide a framework for racing as a level playing field. Any road racing outside the UCI umbrella is likely to be 'anything goes'.....didn't they make a movie about that....Rollerball?

I live in the US, which has it's own sanctioning body and it's own rule book (and it may very well have it's own weight restrictions), and it's hardly a free for all "anything goes" type group. Granted they are going to adopt the UCI rules sometime in the future, but today they haven't. There are also plenty of other cyclist out there in the world who ride in other events, multi-sport events are becoming more and more popular and their cycling rules are MUCH more wide open.



if 2.3 lb.s isn't light for a frame.. waht the piss is? i always thought of 3.5 as light.

I should have qualified my statement, 2.3lbs is light when looking at all the frames available, but when we're talking about the super-light stuff it's on the heavy side. We have manufactures now making frames under the 2lb mark by a handful of manufactures, Lightspeed, Scott, Trek is pretty close as is Giant (all offering very attractive warranties).

Andrew

I should have qualified my statement, 2.3lbs is light when looking at all the frames available, but when we're talking about the super-light stuff it's on the heavy side. We have manufactures now making frames under the 2lb mark by a handful of manufactures, Lightspeed, Scott, Trek is pretty close as is Giant (all offering very attractive warranties).


AJ TIME offers an attractive warrentee and the frame is under 2#. Using 4 ounces for a seat post weight (this would be a very light seat post) you've got a 1.15# frame. And no offence to Giant owners but TIME frames are a cut above a Giant.

AJ TIME offers an attractive warrentee

As I noted in my original response in this thread, TIME offers a lifetime warranty on their frames.



and the frame is under 2#. Using 4 ounces for a seat post weight (this would be a very light seat post) you've got a 1.15# frame.

Wrench Science lists the frame weight at 2.3lbs, and frame/fork at 3.1lbs. I have no idea if they are including the seatpost/headset/stem in that figure or not. A 1.15lb frame (roughly half a kilogram) would be unheard of, the Scott CR1 is .8kg (not including the headset, no stem, and no seatpost). But who knows, it's hard to say with all the included stuff. In either case it's a very lightweight setup.



And no offence to Giant owners but TIME frames are a cut above a Giant.

Sure, the TIME frame/fork setup is nearly $5,000 alone. You can buy a whole carbon Giant for that (buy the cheapest one and you can buy almost 2 of them), so I would hope the Time was giving me more for my money.

Andrew

Wrench Science lists the frame weight at 2.3lbs, and frame/fork at 3.1lbs. I have no idea if they are including the seatpost/headset/stem in that figure or not. A 1.15lb frame (roughly half a kilogram) would be unheard of, the Scott CR1 is .8kg (not including the headset, no stem, and no seatpost). But who knows, it's hard to say with all the included stuff. In either case it's a very lightweight setup.


The seat post is intergrated. It needs to be "cut to suit" the rider so it is part of the frame weight. I'm using 120g as baseline for a light seat post this is just over 4oz. This is a very light and stiff frame.

its not about the bike...heheh.