Fifty Plus (50+) - 17 pounds is pretty good.

My son just installed the Stans/Chris King wheelset that I laced up for him on his new carbon Felt bike. Total weight on my semi-accurate fish scale was right at or maybe just a "tick" under 17 pounds. That's about a pound heavier than he was hopeing but still pretty good. Actually, considering he's using Dura Ace brifters and he doesn't have any really exotic components like a carbon crankset or aftermarket brakes, I'm thinking 17 pounds is realistic.

He's planning to take it out to Schulersberg hill tomorrow. Schulersberg has one section that, I'm told, is around 20% so that should be a pretty good test.

Unless he's climbing against the clock, 1 lb won't make a big difference.

Hmm. I don't know a lot about the various weights of carbon, aluminum, et. al. frames but my Masi Gran Criterium (2005) is an aluminum frame with CF forks and rear triangle and it weighs 17 lbs. w/o pedals. My gf's Fuji (smaller frame) weighs a couple ounces less than my Masi.

Hmm. I don't know a lot about the various weights of carbon, aluminum, et. al. frames but my Masi Gran Criterium (2005) is an aluminum frame with CF forks and rear triangle and it weighs 17 lbs. w/o pedals.

I guess that's a quick way to drop a pound or so from your bike's weight but isn't it hard to climb hills with no pedals?

It just takes quite a bit longer :)

And, it's much less painful. :)

My Cannondale weighs about 17-18 pounds and that is a fun bike to ride. My normal steel-framed Basso weighs about 21 pounds and I can tell the difference. I'm a fairly big guy - 6' 1" and 15.5 stone (217 pounds) and both those bikes have been reliable. I've knocked them about a bit, sometimes at high speed and I have had any major mechanical problems with them.

I rode with a small rider yesterday who was a self-confessed 'weight weenie'. His bike was a CF Once, with CF forks, CF bars, CF seat post, even CF saddle! He said the bike was heavier than usual because it was still in winter mode with heavier wheels, clincher tyres and different pedals to what he uses in the summer. Winter bike weight: 12 pounds; summer bike weight: 11 pounds!

An impressively light bike! What was not so impressive was the loud CRACK! from his bike when he rode over a 'sleeping policeman'***. He had snapped his seat post. Apparently he had paid £500 ($750) for that post! :twitchy:

The rider only weighed 9 stone 1 pound (127 pounds) and he didn't hit the hump that fast so I think that was a clear case of cutting too much weight from the bike! I'd be much happier riding a 17 pound bike that was reliable than an 11 or 12 pound bike that was fragile.

*** Sleeping policeman: A UK term for a raised hump across the width of a road, acting as a traffic-slowing measure

17 lbs seems very realistic. As I posted a short while back, I've currently got three road bikes, all coming in at 17.1 lbs.... which but for the most strident racer is not too bad. Do you know if his Dura Brifters are the 7800 - 7801 series or the 7900 series?

RG, Getting one of my 58 cm frames into the 18 lb. range is fairly easy while still not being a weight weenie and rugged enough to not need a team car following, but that's about $700 more than a 20 lb. rig. (I measure with everything except the pump and seat bag.)

You made me wonder for the first time what the Cannondale T700 I'm presently building will come in at... will it be closer to my road bikes or closer to my hardtail... we shall see, perhaps today.

Brad

17 lbs is light - it starts costing a lot of money to trim the next few lbs. Most of my rides are 22 +/- 2 lb. My lightest, a 61cm steel frame is 18.0 lbs with the mirror. I believe I can feel the difference when riding that bike.

My son just installed the Stans/Chris King wheelset that I laced up for him on his new carbon Felt bike. Total weight on my semi-accurate fish scale was right at or maybe just a "tick" under 17 pounds. That's about a pound heavier than he was hopeing but still pretty good. Actually, considering he's using Dura Ace brifters and he doesn't have any really exotic components like a carbon crankset or aftermarket brakes, I'm thinking 17 pounds is realistic.

He's planning to take it out to Schulersberg hill tomorrow. Schulersberg has one section that, I'm told, is around 20% so that should be a pretty good test.

What size frame is it? 17lbs sounds very reasonable based on what you've described. I have a pretty lightweight grouppo on my latest bike and it's still around 17 lbs. My pedals probably add 1/2 pound more than preferable but other than that I don't know what I'd do to get it lighter other than go to some 1200 gram tub's.

My Cannondale weighs about 17-18 pounds and that is a fun bike to ride. My normal steel-framed Basso weighs about 21 pounds and I can tell the difference. I'm a fairly big guy - 6' 1" and 15.5 stone (217 pounds) and both those bikes have been reliable. I've knocked them about a bit, sometimes at high speed and I have had any major mechanical problems with them.

I rode with a small rider yesterday who was a self-confessed 'weight weenie'. His bike was a CF Once, with CF forks, CF bars, CF seat post, even CF saddle! He said the bike was heavier than usual because it was still in winter mode with heavier wheels, clincher tyres and different pedals to what he uses in the summer. Winter bike weight: 12 pounds; summer bike weight: 11 pounds!

An impressively light bike! What was not so impressive was the loud CRACK! from his bike when he rode over a 'sleeping policeman'***. He had snapped his seat post. Apparently he had paid £500 ($750) for that post! :twitchy:

The rider only weighed 9 stone 1 pound (127 pounds) and he didn't hit the hump that fast so I think that was a clear case of cutting too much weight from the bike! I'd be much happier riding a 17 pound bike that was reliable than an 11 or 12 pound bike that was fragile.

*** Sleeping policeman: A UK term for a raised hump across the width of a road, acting as a traffic-slowing measure

:eek: I'll stick with my alu seat post. I just can't imagine what it is like to get that seat post up your butt!

:eek: I'll stick with my alu seat post. I just can't imagine what it is like to get that seat post up your butt!
I can, but I don't fancy it! ;)

It wasn't a clean break. The saddle was still held on by the front part of the clamp, but the back of the post had a big split in it. The saddle was flopping about so the rider headed for home. Fortunately he was only about 7 miles away at the time.

He told me that his saddle had fallen off a couple of years ago on a fast descent during an organised event. He went back up the hill to retrieve the saddle but then found the saddle clamp was missing. He searched for it but couldn't find it so he had to ride standing up over 24 mills of big hills to get back to his car at event HQ! I asked if he'd lowered the post for safety and he said that he hadn't. It's the first thing I would have done!

I asked if he'd lowered the post for safety and he said that he hadn't. It's the first thing I would have done!

If he's that much of a weight weenie maybe he hadn't brought an allen wrench with him.

Theres already too many colonoscopy threads on this forum...

A friend of mine told me if I wanted a lighter bike, I should eat more salads !!! I did, dropped my bike weight by 28 pounds !!! 17 Lbs is good and should climb well.

If he's that much of a weight weenie maybe he hadn't brought an allen wrench with him.
That's actually a good point! Why bother fitting a CF bottle cage if you then go and weigh yourself down with tools? ;)

Here's what his post looked like after what should have been a pretty insignificant bump ...

http://www.slimmerandfitter.com/wordpress/wp-content/images3/broken-carbon-fibre-seatpost.jpg

I weighed two bikes recently with a new bike scale I brought. My lightest is a CF Cevelo with Zipp wheels. It came to 16.2 lbs with cages, which is about what I expected. What surprised me is the weight of my 20 year old steel bike. Over the years I did a lot of upgrades including CF fork, Kysrium wheels, Thomson seatpost, etc. It was 18.2 lbs!

I weighed my GURU Photon after I got it all built up, with cages (but w/o pump and under-saddle bag) and it was just a tad under 16 lb. with a SRAM Red group, plus XX rear derailluer and 11-32 cassette.

Yes, I can tell it's lighter than my Calfee w/Ultegra, but the big plus is that it fits me; which the Calfee never quite did.

Regarding the seatpost issues noted above, the GURU doesn't really have a seatpost, but rather the seat tube just extends several inches above the top tube. Then, to attach the saddle, there is a (Ritchie) clamp. Looks funny, but seems to work fine! Of course I had to cut that tube very carefully to arrive at the correct saddle height (measure 14 times, cut once!), but overall no problem.

Rick / OCRR

I read on a bike shop site that sells steel Torelli's that with the "new steel" it's possible to build a steel bike within a pound of a CF bike, all else being equal. I assume that's steel frame with CF fork.

My Felt is 17 pounds with Ultegra and Mavic Elite wheels. It is a female frame which may make it lighter - ? - although I have the tall one (equivalent to about a 53.5 mens frame). I don't see how it would need to be any lighter. It is now almost 2 months old and it feels better and better and faster and faster the more I have tuned it into my body (or maybe I am just getting more comfortable on it).

I am still amazed at how much easier it is to go uphill on a light bike. I have always dreaded them, but with this bike I am realizing it doesn't have to be an excruciating ordeal. :twitchy:

Today I rode 15 miles on a nearby bike trail. I was cooking along passing everyone (don't these people have to work on a Wed?). :rolleyes: I was proud of my old self. 17 pounds is feathery light to me. It seems plenty good enough.

I read on a bike shop site that sells steel Torelli's that with the "new steel" it's possible to build a steel bike within a pound of a CF bike, all else being equal. I assume that's steel frame with CF fork.

No way. I posed above this:


I weighed two bikes recently with a new bike scale I brought. My lightest is a CF Cevelo with Zipp wheels. It came to 16.2 lbs with cages, which is about what I expected. What surprised me is the weight of my 20 year old steel bike. Over the years I did a lot of upgrades including CF fork, Kysrium wheels, Thomson seatpost, etc. It was 18.2 lbs!

That's two lbs exactly. Both bikes have similar weight wheels, identical gruppo's, same pedals, etc. The lightest reasonable CF frames are around 2 lbs and the lightest steel frames are 4 lbs. You can get lighter CF and steel but neither are the kind you want to ride all the time.

I think the author isn't comparing apples to apples.

Add a couple of full water bottles and then weigh it.

I read on a bike shop site that sells steel Torelli's that with the "new steel" it's possible to build a steel bike within a pound of a CF bike, all else being equal. I assume that's steel frame with CF fork.

I've seen Richard Sachs and Dave Kirk both state (sometime in the past ~4 years) that their steel bikes with steel forks can be within 1.5 lbs of all but the most hyper-weight-weenied CF bikes. All ya gotta do is attach the same components.

Of course, it's rare that someone would take a very traditional-looking Sachs or Kirk steel frame&fork and then attach Lightweight wheels and carbon bar/stems/cages etc. so in practice there probably aren't a whole lot of ~15lb Sachs or Kirks out there. But strip a 13.5lb Scott Addict down to the frame/fork & strap all those components on a modern steel frame/fork and bingo, ~15lb bike.

So yeah, I'd believe Torelli re: 1lb difference if you go with a carbon fork.

The lightest reasonable CF frames are around 2 lbs and the lightest steel frames are 4 lbs. You can get lighter CF and steel but neither are the kind you want to ride all the time.

That's what I think too. I can remember when Cannondale made a big deal about producing a 3 pound aluminum frame. A 2 pound carbon frame is 1/3 lighter.

Being a retro grouch, the old rule of thumb was "Find 16 places to shave 1 oz. of weight from your bike and you'll make it a pound lighter." A frame that weighs a whole pound less is a huge weight saving that you aren't likely to make up in other ways.

3 lb. steel frames are available. Not exactly common, but not really extreme anymore either.

My Roubaix Expert (58cm) weighed 17.5 lbs. on the scales at the LBS. It feels pretty darned light to me. Way lighter than the 22.5 lb. steel Bridgestone RB-1 I was on before. My friend the LBS manager just built up a 56cm Roubaix Pro frame (same frame as the Expert) that weighs just under 16.5 lbs. His bike is one size smaller, has SRAM Force vs. my bike's Ultegra, has carbon handlebars, a slightly lighter stem and saddle. His super light American Classic wheels are probably 1/2 lb. lighter than my Fulcrum 4, making the biggest difference.