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Old 06-28-19, 09:43 AM
  #14  
HTupolev
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Originally Posted by kevin****t
So lets say we put both bikes (Domane and Emonda) on a straight away for 20 miles completely flat and no head/tail wind. How much faster is the Emonda compared to the Domane in this situation.. Basically I am just trying to find out if just changing to the Emonda is enough to get me to 23/24ish mph average simply because it's less weight.
Dropping weight isn't how you improve the flat-ground cruising speed of a bike.

I rode my touring bike to work this morning, very heavily loaded for camping, it weighs about 70lbs right now. Normally on my commute the same bike weighs 30lbs. I ended up going a couple mph slower than usual, and a good chunk of that was because of the air drag from four full panniers and a rack pack, plus the fact that I was riding at a slightly lower effort level than normal.

You're looking for a 9% speed improvement by dropping weight?
Even if you're doing an uphill time trial rather than riding on flat ground, 5lbs isn't going to net you anything close to that. Maybe if you dropped tens of thousands of dollars putting together an exotic 7lb road bike, you could see an effect of that magnitude.
On flat ground, 5lbs isn't going to have any tangible effect on cruising speed. Power required to accelerate the bike+rider will be a few percent lower, so you may have an ever-so-slightly easier time holding onto things out of corners or whatever.
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