Originally Posted by
SHBR
How many different bikes have you ridden?.
I dunno, 6 or 7. The two mentioned, one or the other every day, maybe 40K miles on the "light" one and 10K on the heavy one, on the same route daily, a couple of thousand times, so I do have a pretty good basis to compare. More miles on both in general and maybe 15-20K on a third bike that is considerably heavier. And yeah, sometimes the load makes the "heavy" bike weigh more than 50.
Less momentum is lost, and its usually easier to make course corrections, etc.
It might be that your lighter bike doesn't ride all that well, I have ridden many (somewhat light, 8-12KG) bikes that don't, they often have a harsh ride with poor line tracking, excessive flex, etc. There are many variables to consider, unless we are exactly the same in terms of size, rider ability, and bike style, we will have different results.
It's not the bike, but even if it was a horrible handling bike that couldn't roll over bumps right (however that's supposed to work) you're saying that the
weight of the bike makes it harder to roll over bumps. It's not subjective, and it would logically apply to ANY bike. More weight on the bike would make it harder to roll over bumps.
But that hasn't happen in my experience. I don't see a physical reason why it necessarily would - I'm going with my suspicions that 1, you get thrown around on the rougher roads more than I do and have the bring bike back to path, and 2) you are confusing weight with some other artifact of the "light bike" such as frame compliance and better tires. What you should do is, using the same bike, coast down a g
entle slope (so that terminal velocity is not involved) where the surface is irregular, with the
same bike and adding weight some of the times, and see what your actual speed difference is at the bottom.