uprightbent

I weigh 210 lbs. Bike weight is 38. I'm pushing 248 lbs. total. Does it matter, everything else being the same, if the bike weighs say-30 lbs? Then I'd be pushing 240 lbs., only 3% less combined weight with the heavy bike. Can you feel this 3% reduction? This combined weight theory was explained to me by a very reputable bent guru and it makes sense to me. He further explained how much it's more important in the case of a 150 lb. rider on a 15 lb. bike. Someone please set me straight on this theory. My concern is that we all know the extreme price differential for anything lightweight. I'm trying to justify it.

Dchiefransom

The same person on a much lighter bike will go faster. The same heavy person losing 50 pounds using the same bike will go much faster than they did before on the lighter bike. The same heavy person that rewards himself/herself with a new lighter bike for losing the weight will go faster with a bigger smile.

Mars

I don't think that it will make a real life difference if you are just riding recreationally or commuting. Futher, the extra weight is essentially irrelevant on the flats, it only affects us up hill. If you are racing, every once can make a difference because your body still must do work to lift that wieght up against gravity.

I remember a ride with a friend of mine. We always rode as hard as we could. In any case, I was carrying a textbook... maybe 6 pounds(?) in my messenger bag and I'll tell you, I really felt it on the climbs. On the other hand, i felt it going back down too, and I passed him with the gravity boost it gave me!!

steveknight

I always wish for the lighter 20 pound recumbent. but deep inside only the hills will show the improvement.

Dchiefransom

https://www.lightningbikes.com/r84.htm

jeff-o

I've heard talk that a big factor in all this is the weight of the wheels, and the rest of the moving components. Since your wheels are basically two giant gyroscopes, you need to input energy to get them spinning. Lighter, smaller diameter wheels will take less energy to spin at a certain rpm. However, larger heavier wheels will give you better balance (and more resistance to turning...)

sch

200+ pounders don't need light weight wheels, not that most bents have a lot of choice in the sub 650 sizes. I agree with uprightbent, the most important thing is to get the bike and ride. Once you have a year or two experience, and perhaps some weight reduction, he can consider whether a lighter bike might be in order. Rider weight is by far the biggest factor, and after conditioning has improved the power to weight ratio.
Steve

BlazingPedals

Not completely true. Weight is a factor every time you accelerate. Hillclimbing is nothing more than accelerating against gravity. Rotating weight, as well as sprung and unsprung weight, behave a bit differently, but they matter more often than you'd think. My opinion is that a 20 pound bike will always be faster and less tiring to ride than an otherwise identical 30 pound bike with identical riders. And if the rider loses weight too, the lower weight bike will maintain its advantage.

budster

Ah! But what about two identical riders, one with a 20 lb bike, one with a 30 lb bike. What if the rider of the 30 lb bike loses 10 lbs of pure fat off his body?

Who's faster now? Or are we now into the realm of apples v. oranges?

ppc

You're absolutely right. The only people who need ultralight bikes are

(1) very thin people, because as you explain, the bike's weight becomes non-negligible compared to the person
(2) Very competitive riders who are already at the top of their physical performances and who need the little weight difference with other athletes to get an edge
(3) Weight weenies and poseurs, because their mental stability and their social lives depend on buying the flashiest, latest, lightest bike stuff

Group 1 and 2 are actually quite small. The industry produces marvels of lightweight technology mainly to sell to group 3. So, unless you're a poseur (which I doubt since you ride a bent in the first place) I say if you like your bike, if it feels too heavy, it'll get better as you shed pounds hauling it uphill. Or, you can think of your heavy bike as a way of training harder and getting fitter than the one with a light bike

BlazingPedals

Yes, you're getting into the apples/oranges realm. Or, to be more specific, sprung vs unsprung weight. Are you wondering if the 30 pound bike will let the rider lose 10 pounds whereas the 20 pound bike won't?

royalflash

what a load of crap

if you want to go faster particularly uphill or city commuting (with lots of stops and starts) then a lighter bike will help- obviously being lighter yourself will also help

BlazingPedals

LOL, I tend to agree. If you drop ten pounds from the bike, that's an immediate ten pounds' advantage that is cumulative with any weight loss from the engine that might or might not come later. Given the choice between otherwise identical bikes, I'd always rather have the lighter one. Of course, there's always a compromise involved; in this case the price usually goes up as the weight goes down. So it becomes a question of finding the right compromise between weight and price.

ppc

Stop dreaming. Most cyclists aren't fit enough or light enough to tell the difference between two bikes with a 5 pound difference. As for fit cyclists, only a tiny minority will benefit from the weight difference between a good $2000 bike and a $5,000+ one in terms of speed and acceleration, and they have to be pretty serious and committed to shell out that kind of money.

As BlazingPedals said, it's a compromise, but not between weight and price, but between usefulness and price. Most cyclists who buy light bikes or bike equipments have no use for it, and would be faster on a heavier bike with a better, or more regular training regimen. Those who truly benefit from a light bike are not very many, all the others are either poseurs, or people who enjoy owning expensive things, like those who buy expensive hi-fi sound systems just to play Britney Spears on it, but they're not buying the expensive bike stuff to take advantage of its weight.

If you think your bike is 5 pound too heavy, stop reading bicycle magazines, drop whatever you have in your pockets, go take a pee, sweat for half an hour and there's your 5 pounds. As for "performance city commuting", well, I'm not sure what planet you live on really...

BookFinder 

This discussion reminds me of the useless hours of debate among fellow students while I was taking golf for my PE credits in college. Beyond the two days a week that we got to play a round in the name of education, we learned a lot about the finer points of the game.

The debate about club quality vs player skill was endless: "Will those clubs (Hogans, Pings, blades, cavity backs, etc) help my score enough to justify the expenditure?"

One day my coach got tired of listening to it, and looking at me (or so it seemed), he cut through all the crap and said, "At your skill level, you would be well advised to forget the pro-line clubs, and spend your money on buckets of balls at the practice range..."

Ahem ... cough.

I can't speak for anyone else, but at my skill level, five pounds of difference in bicycles is not going to make a lot of difference...

budster

Not exactly. I'm sure pedalling a heavier bike is more work and so burns more calories, but -- what I'm really wondering is whether my approach makes sense, my approach being: lose significant weight off the body before shelling out serious cash for a lighter bike.

I'm pretty sure it makes sense, but there are a lot of knowledgeable people on here, so why not ask?

BlazingPedals

To put it another way, would you rather be better than your bike or have the bike be better than you?That's going to be a personal decision, based on your priorities, as well as your current and anticipated future abilities. I guess if exercise is the only thing you're after, then paying more for an easier-rolling/faster/lighter/better bike wouldn't make economic sense. Personally, I'd rather have a bike that won't hold me back.

Mooky

I weigh 326 lbs and my steel ReBike climbs like a mountain goat. Fully loaded. Weight does not matter. If you have big leg muscles you will climb anything including mountains.

Mooky

Dchiefransom

I think my first post would explain part of that, but it can only really be assessed comparing one rider to themselves.
As far as how much it costs for a "light" bike, the newer Trek 1000 feels about the same weight as my 2002 Lemond Zurich did, and the scales put that one at 20 pounds. ONe costs $650, and the other cost $2,000.

MaxBender

Mooky is not fully loaded.

He failed to mention he removes his big yellow flag prior to ascending those mountains...

Trsnrtr

That's always been my plan coupled with the lightest bike possible. :-)

royalflash

Your points don't make any logical sense so I can only assume that you are just jealous because you can't afford a nice light bike.

I don't think it is particularly controversial that all other things being equal that lighter bikes are faster uphills and in stop-start conditions. If you don't believe this then just put 20 kg in a rucksack and give it a try. All the rest of your argument is just your subjective opinion on what other people are justified in spending their money on. If you get to be President of North Korea then this might matter to someone but until then its just hot air.

IMO if someone has plenty of cash and want to get a nice light bike then good luck to them.

shokhead

Bisides WW,is there another site that has bike weights listed?

ppc

LOL, yeah that's just me, I'm jealous
I have four bikes I use and enjoy. 2 of them even happen to be expensive. Who do you want me to be jealous of? Ah yes, my neighbor with the bigger garage


Look, strictly speaking, you're perfectly right, there's no argument there. All I'm saying is, in real life, there won't be any discernable performance increase between Joe Blow on an average bike and Joe Blow on a Trek: Joe Blow is either too heavy, too unfit or doesn't know how to ride efficiently for the weight difference to matter. Joe Blow therefore doesn't need a Trek (yet).


Absolutely. People are free to spend whatever amount they want on ultra-expensive light bike stuff. That doesn't meant those who do without needing it aren't poseurs.

Bianchiriderlon

I love physics!

I read with great interest the reference to a "gravity boost" on the downhill as a result of heavier loads carried on bikes. By extension, the same argument could be made with reference to heavier bikes as well. The reality is this: downhill runs do not become faster as a result of having heavier bikes. This thinking goes against what has been known in the field of physics ever since Da Vinci. If you recall, he dropped similarly shaped and sized weights off the leaning tower of Piza. They were made of different materials and weighed differently. They would hit the ground at the same time in spite of being of differing weights.

This is the case because compared with the size and mass of the planet, (the gravity source) they are for all practical purposes, of the same relative weight and mass.

Da Vinci concluded that where there is a difference in the rate of fall of objects, it is due to confounding variables, wind resistance, for example. A feather, or a parachute will fall more slowly than a steel ball because of air resistance, a counfounding variable in our equasion.

When riding up hill, weight does make a difference as we must work to move the weight against gravity. Therefore, a lighter bike will climb more easily than a heavier one. On the flat, weight makes little difference as inertia plays a role. Once an object is set in motion, it tends to "want" to remain in motion unless acted upon by other factors, rolling resistance (friction), for example. Accelerating a bike to one's desired cruising speed will be affected by weight in much the same manner as climbing hills would.

As an experiment, try coasting downhill (don't pedal) with and without an additional load. The weight and configuration of the bike will make no difference. Just make certain you use the same bike for both runs. Sit on the bike in the same position in both the loaded and unloaded conditions. Use the same line on the same hill in both cases. The independent variable is weight and the dependent variable is speed. All extraneous variables have been controlled. Note the speed on the cyclometer at the conclusion of the run in both the loaded and the unloaded conditions. I predict the null hypothesis, that you will see no significant difference in speed. If you do see a difference, do not pass go, proceed directly to the Nobel prize for physics, and collect that $200.00!

Cheers

Charles