PatrickGSR94

My KHS MTB is aluminum frame, with almost all late-90's Deore XT and LX parts on it. Most everything is aluminum as far as I know, including rims, crank arms, pedals, and possibly chain rings, and it weighs right around 28 lbs last time I checked. My wife's new BD bike, with aluminum frame and stem, but lots of Tourney steel parts, weighs in at almost the exact same 28 lbs. How is that possible? The frame of my bike is heavier perhaps?

Not that we'd ever do it for a $300 bike, but I suppose switching the components to more higher-end, with more aluminum, could potentially make her bike substantially lighter than my MTB, no?

MTB


Wife's new bike

jimc101

From the photo, your bike weighs in due to the following

Suspension fork
Multiple bags & lights
stand
tires

Your wife's bike

No un-necessary bags
lighter tires

Get some rigid forks, slick tires, loose things like the stand, and at least one bag, and you will start to get the weight down, things like the seatpost, stem and handlebar can weigh a lot, but replacing them with lighter parts can soon become very expensive.

PatrickGSR94

Oh sorry, the pic of my MTB is now outdated. The kick stand is gone, and actually now resides on my wife's bike as shown in the pic. The 28 lbs. I measured is without the kick stand.

I do have a chro-mo rigid fork and 26x1.5 street tires, but I just recently changed the bike back to MTB duty. I weighed both forks and the chro-mo fork is only about 50 grams less than the suspension fork.

fietsbob

U didn't spend enough on either, to get lightest parts, .. just go ride the bike.

Bill Kapaun

I've ran into a few box store aluminum bikes that were total boat anchors.
Apparently cheap aluminum bikes have the same drawbacks as cheap steel bikes. Lower quality metal means it has to be thicker.

PatrickGSR94

I understand that about the BD bike. But I was actually surprised that it weighs *only* 28 lbs. with all the steel components, when my MTB has many more aluminum components and weighs the same. Perhaps it's just a fact of the MTB being 15+ years old, where a newer aluminum-frame hard tail with current Deore XT components might weigh less than mine.

jimc101

The simplest thing, is not to get hung up on the weight, just because it was mid range 15 years ago, and is aluminum, doesn't mean it will be superlight, I weighted my bikes a few weeks ago, and was surprised about how heavy some were, my 2011 Tomac Silver (26" hardtail Alu, medium frame, SLX / XT, Rock Shox SIDS and a dropper post) weighed in at 26.09lbs on a Park scale. That's a mid-high end frame, with some of the modern versions on the parts you have, and it's not that much lighter. More important is how it riders than the weight.

Also remember BITB weights were often quoted for the smallest frame size, and now many brands refuse to even quote weights for full bikes, as each size will be different.

If you really want to find where the weigh in both you and your wifes bikes are, break them down and weigh all the parts; still thinking the fork on you bike is a big part of the weight, and without knowing the brand / model, the tires as well, possibly even the inner tubes could be heavy on yours.

Just having a quick look on BD, the Wendy has a decent spec for a entry level bike, and if you stripped it down, you will probably find it has quite a light frame, the heavy parts look to be the wheels and crank.

PatrickGSR94

The weight for each bike is what I got from standing on my digital bathroom scale while holding the bike, and then subtracting my own weight without the bike. Was not going by any published weights for either bike.

I weighed both my MTB's suspension fork and the Nashbar cromo rigid fork I have for it, on a Sharper Image kitchen scale. Suspension fork is just a touch over 1,500 grams, and the cromo fork is just under 1,500, about 50 grams less from what I recall. It's a suspension-corrected fork with both v-brake bosses and disc caliper tabs.

Dunbar

I'm not clear about which bike you expected to be lighter.

PatrickGSR94

I expected the BD pink bike to be heavier because of all the steel components. I was surprised that it weighed in the same as my MTB with mostly all aluminum components.

I was actually surprised when the UPS tracking said the whole package only weighed 30 pounds.

Keep in mind that before my KHS bike (which I only started riding regularly this past year) I was only used to old Xmart bikes in the 40+ pound range. So any bike under 30 pounds is light, to me.

pierce

also the cheap hybrid tires on that dawes are probably excessively heavy. I lost a bit of weight just going from the 700x35 Nimbus that came on my hybrid to 700x32 Vittoria Randonneur Hyper (350g each vs 550g for the Nimbus)

PatrickGSR94

This one came with 700x28, which seems very narrow to me for this type/style of bike. Was thinking of putting 32's or 35's on it sometime in the future.

pierce

well, I really like these Randonneur Hypers (in 2013, they are Voyager Hyper), available in x32 or x38... light, supple, great ride, decent flat protection. but they are premium tires, $50 each.

Dilberto

Ha - wait until you ride a 23-pound bike....you'll LOSE SLEEP, just thinking about it.

PatrickGSR94

What ya mean? My road bike is less than 23 lbs. and I'm just as slow on it as I am on the MTB.