Originally Posted by
svtmike
I have hands.
I prefer sarcasm to pedantry and condescension any day. Your brakes are a horrible compromise -- single pivot mechanism with very little travel and precious little tire clearance. They may work for you but they are a great example of how you've sacrificed the much superior but heavier mechanism of a good dual pivot brake for something that doesn't matter -- weight. I'll take a Shimano Ultegra brake set over those Zero Gravity's 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Your lousy shifting FSA cranks with their proprietary and poorly sealed bottom brackets are another example of a bad tradeoff. I'd also expect your wheels are underbuilt and noodly for many riders and American Classic hubs aren't exactly a paragon of reliability either. I do like their freehub clip kits though. I add them to all of my alloy freehubs even though it's extra grams.
When it comes right down to it, the weight of a road bike within a reasonable range (say 14-20 pounds) doesn't matter a hill of beans to most riders (Soloist Assassin is an example of an exception). You only think you've made incredibly optimal tradeoffs but I wouldn't touch one of your bikes with a ten foot pole. There are other attributes that I value much more highly than lightness.
When I built my 12.99lbs bike, it was not purely built for extreme lightness. If that was the case, a lot of the parts selected would seem to be mistakes. My S2 was built with a combination of aero, lightness, and stiffness as the focus. It could be lighter, or more aero, but the stiffness is pretty much about as stiff as it could be at least for me being 155lbs it seems that way. The KCNC brakes I use work as good as any Ultegra, or Force brakes I've ever used they are just lighter. That's the cool thing is some companies make stuff that is just awesome like those brakes. Then there are companies like AX Lightness, that make stupid light parts, that are not stiff at all, and are susceptible to failure. The challenge is to make cuts in weight where you can, but still have good performance. My S2 does everything my 5200 does. It just does all of those things better.
Originally Posted by
gsteinb
unless you've found a way to negate the laws of physics, weight clearly matters. It certainly matters more depending on how you're using your bike. Mountains favor lighter bikes. It matters less if you ride to the coffee shop. It may or may not matter as much depending on what kind of criterium racer one may be.
Whether it's worth worrying about, spending money on, or what trade offs are justifiable, are all certainly choices for the individual. But to categorically deny that weight matters is silly.
This guy gets it. Physics is pretty simple, but it seems to elude the logic of some.
Originally Posted by
datlas
I am with svtmike on this.
I upgraded from a 24 pound steel bike to a 17 pound Ti bike. That's 7 pounds lighter. The difference in speed is marginal.
I do believe the difference between my 17 pound bike and a 14 pound weight weenie bike is going to be even smaller. Sure, it's there, but it's miniscule.
It depends on the course. If it's flat aero means more than weight. As soon as things go vertical, you are carrying every single gram up those hills. Less mass=less work, simple as that.