Originally Posted by
baribari
It's not just hills that less weight makes faster, it's acceleration to your max 'cruising' speed from a stop. It takes forever for me and my 27 pound bike to reach 20-21 which is how fast I can go in a straight line with a moderate effort, but every time I slow down it takes that much longer to get back to that speed.
Weight does matter more when accelerating.
27 lbs is unusually heavy. A typical weight is 20lbs. Compared to 16 lbs, it won't take "forever" to accelerate the 20 lb bike. I manage to keep up with my 26lb bike with people riding lighter (18lb) bikes.
Originally Posted by
baribari
A lighter bike would probably reach that speed a few seconds shorter.
I like your "certainty".
The magnitude of the performance enhancement is still small.
Originally Posted by
baribari
This is especially relevant in criteriums, especially ones with hills.
You're talking about racing. Small differences in performance are much more valuable to racers.
Originally Posted by
baribari
That, and riding in traffic, or around cities.
And the value here is much, much less!
(Talk to Joeybike about riding around NOLA with his LHT!)
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My point isn't that reduced weight yields more performance (that's obvious). If reducing weight was
free, we clearly all choose to ride the lightest appropriate bicycle.
Many people expect
large enhancements in performance due to reduced weights and that doesn't happen!