Velognome 

"After I won races" Exactly, now-a-days it seems if you're not on the lightest, carbonest, smallest lycra unitardest wearing stick figure.....your just a poser ( from a wt weenie perspective)

In the late 70's, during Club rides, as I recall; Campy stuff was more impressive & lusted after then the lightest stuff money could buy, Drillium was more style than weight reduction, jerseys were still wool or a blend making them as heavy as an entire " I look like Lance" kit of today.

20grit

Zeus 2000 is the ticket. NIB stuff sells for ridiculous prices on ebay.

VeloBase.com - View Group

rootboy 

I still have my wool shorts, with real chamois lining, from back then. They still fit. Sort of.

Mr IGH

I worked a RRB (in Winnetka at that time) and saw most of it. Super Record was expensive, most weight weenies were more middle class. Those aluminum bolt kits were popular (derailleur bolts, chainring bolts, stem etc). Alan/Graftex/Speedwell were the light frames, Alan aluminum frames weren't too expensive. For rims, they called them sew-ups back then, Fiamme red Labels were the light ones (290gm?). If you had money and luck the German rims with wooden inserts at the spoke holes were ~250gm but out of production since the 60s. Weyless and Hi-E hubs were common, Mallaird aluminum freewheels were high end (nylon bearings were the hot set-up, might last 500 miles).

In the spring of 1978 I showed up at Trexeltown for the Jr National Team Trials with an 18 spoke front wheel. Eddy B came over to look and was kinda mad. Told me the rim would flex too much and increase tire footprint/drag...The next year everyone had 18 spoke front wheels and aero was in.

EddyR

One thing no one mentions is handlebars. In the 50's-70's I used very light small handlebars. Several times I bent them up as I pulled so hard on them. I used cotton wrap that I changed often. The guy who made the handlebars supplied very light stem for them also. I have no idea what my bike weighted in the 50's as my very old grandfather got me anything I wanted in bicycles.

RaleighSport

I think I would love to see your bike from the 50's... I'm guessing it's not still around by the way you've phrased it though?

JohnDThompson 

So do I. I still use them, too. I had Kucharik replace the original elastic and chamois a couple years ago.

rootboy 

Wow. Kucharik still has, and replace, real chamois? Amazing.

JohnDThompson 

Yup:

Kucharik - Repairs Chart

repechage

Yellow Labels were the light Fiamme rims.
Back then we called Super Record, stupid record. Not worth the price.
A few guys got the Super Record pedals and sold them off, bummed that they had knee problems after, this was attributed to the flexing of the ti shafts.
Scheeren rims were the wood filled rims, Weinmann also branded them. (there was another brand, Duracal (sp?) but really uncommon) I had Scheerens on my track race wheels, because Patrick Sercu did and they polished up so well and with chrome spokes just sparked under the velodrome lights. Hey, I was a junior, and style meant a lot.

rootboy 

Well I'll be danged. I like that one entry; "shorten legs". I believe my old shorts are Black Bottoms, if I remember correctly, and the legs on those were way shorter than the shorts that came just a bit later. They were bullet proof. I'm still nearly the same waist size I was in high school…nearly……but they're a bit snug on me. Being very scrawny, I ordered a pair of the Kucharik wool shorts a while ago, in small, but they're not a size small in my book. Nice, but too baggy.

rootboy 

Still does! As far as I'm concerned.

Mr IGH

Christmas '78 at the OTC, nobody cared about weight or style, we were into girls.

jyl

Did a little figuring. Hollow pin chain (like Regina Superleggera) should drop 100 g. Alloy freewheel should drop 80-100 g (current is steel straightblock). Miscellaneous titanium and aluminum fasters might drop 30 g. Lighter tubular tires (the existing ones hold air but look dodgy) might save 100 g.

So that is 310-330 g (about 0.7 lb) without doing anything "non-period" or changing the basic component group, drilling or cutting down anything, or hunting down very obscure/very expensive parts.

On the cheating front, switching to light clipless pedals might save another 100 g, bringing savings to over 0.9 lb.

I "need" (like, first-world problem type of "need") about 0.75 lb to get to my goal.

Chombi

What saddle will you be using for your project? There might be a few grams you can save there. Are you willing to ride a period correct, all plastic, unpadded saddle (Cinelli/Unicanitor)? Otherwise, I don't think that there's that many really light saddles at that time/ An Ideal TB90 with aluminum rails might give you some additional weight weenie points, but I don't think they are even any lighter than say,... a Selle Italia Turbo with steel rails.

bikingshearer 

I do. From 1973 when I first got into this sport to this very day, weight-weenieism has been pretty wide-spread. I never went into it whole hog for two very good reasons: (1) I was a teenager and couldn't afford it, and (2) I was a big boy and wasn't about to go too far in that direction.

The early 70s was about the time the Brooks Pro and the Ideale equivalent started being replaced by lighter saddles. I never used the plastic-only Unicanitors, but the Cinelli No. 3 worked well for my behind.

Peter_B

I know from that period. Cost was an issue. Titanium parts were ultra expensive, so didn't see those used so much by the common folk. What I did or others did: Weinmann 500 brakes; drilled chainrings ourselves; weighed parts in bike shop and found lighter parts like Suntour Cyclone; lighter rims; low flange hubs instead of high flange.

753proguy

17.9 pounds (Raleigh Team Pro 753 with all the trimmings). Mine has mostly Super Record, but an OMAS Ti BB, Ti/AL Cobra brake caliper bits, 24-spoke wheels with weigh-almost-nothing Fiamme Ergal rims, A Zeus 2000 freewheel (since upgraded to a Campagnolo one, though not period-correct), Cinelli aluminum toe clips, Arnold aluminum binder bolt in the Cinelli 1A stem, 240-gram silk tires, and back then it had an Avocet Racing III saddle (very, very uncomfortable, but light!), now has a Flite Ti. I also had Pino Morroni Ti/AL skewers, which I foolishly sold at one point. Wish I could get those back.....

... and the piece de resistance: CLB aluminum (!) brake cable housings. A bit flexy, actually, but they work.

753proguy

Duralca. Also, I call BS on the SR pedals flexing. I don't buy it. Still riding mine, decades later. They don't break, either.

753proguy

It LISTS for ridiculous prices, Doesn't sell......... Barry Scott does not a market make.

I love Zeus, but most of their stuff was pretty low-precision crap. The exceptions are the lovely Zeus 2000 freewheels (a brilliant design, with a bullet-proof body, soft cogs, but so was everything else back then, like Maillard Dural, which are also way cool...), some of the other 2000 series stuff, like the 2001 sidepulls, and the steel headsets and Criterium cranks. Zeus always argued that Campagnolo copied THEM! Hilarious....

753proguy

Not produced until 1983. The last project that involved the Old Man....

753proguy

P.S.

Regina Titanium freewheel and Regina Titanium chain. way cool, but cost a weeks' wages. Each. At wholesale.

753proguy

1974 or perhaps 1975 was when Reynolds 753 debuted (on Raleigh Team Pros., at first).

Columbus KL is super-thin as well. 150-pound rider limit (which we ignored, of course...).

repechage

I was fortunate to win races, and with that came women. The girls my age were useless.

repechage

Ales made a ti chain too and ti spokes with alloy nipples. The spokes were the outrageous price of $2.00 each.