A 2001 bike is just going to be heavier than a 2013 bike in general. Sure you can trim that weight but at what cost? It would be more cost efficient to sell that bike and buy a newer model. The extra weight on your Blue Ridge is everywhere on that bike. It's in the frame, fork, bars, stem, post, components, wheels, yada, yada, yada. Replacing one piece will make a small gain but overall it won't be much. Wheels would be a place to start though.

I am a light weight and I do not think being a heavier rider is a problem. That is providing they have bike fitness of course but those heavy bodies carry a lot more muscle than I do and the strength in their legs is a lot more than I have. I may have endurance but for sheer power heavier riders beat me every time.

Weight does make a difference. How much weight it takes to make a significant difference depends on what the person is trying to do with the bike. A top flight competitor will need to pay attention to the grams. A fit fast rider the pounds. An intermittent rider probably doesn't need to worry about weight at all. Mind weight is total weight. Doesn't do a whole lot of good to spend lots of money to make a bike lighter when a fitness program will both save weight and increase strength.

Don't forget gearing. A heavy mountain bike like my Giant Revel 29er is properly geared for slow speeds up hills. Pedaling harder doesn't get you much more speed. But, it sure does climb, slowly climb. On the other hand my lighter and higher geared LeMond probably has no limit short of the speed of sound if the engine is strong enough.

Two days this week I've ridden the 20# heavier Giant on trails I've often ridden in the LeMond. It gets pretty tough going up hills but there is no fear I won't get there.

In short, my experience is that weight is a definite factor. That is Total Weight including rider and all the rest that is carried. But, so are gearing and tires. Different wheels I think only matter to the superior athlete. I suspect there aren't as many of them as posts might indicate.

As said before, lighter wheels will make the biggest difference.Those 719's are heavy and bullet proof, probably use 36 spokes, and are built for superior strength. That is what I built my touring wheels with. Putting on some light weight wheels would lead to better acceleration, but more work on keeping them rolling.
My experience with bike weight has been minor. I ride a 16.5lb road bike for weekend rides and a 35lb touring bike for commuting and touring. Cruising speed is about the same if I am alone, I might roll a bit faster on the carbon bike, but it doesn't have a computer to give definitive info. It definitely accelerates much faster and is more nimble, but the heavy bike is more comfortable.
Given that group rides are a long series of accelerations over varied terrain, I would suspect that my light bike would cause less fatigue over the ride due to less effort needed to accelerate multiple times over the ride.

On the better wheels that are also lighter.

Giant OCR3 with Alex rims on Formula hubs with Kenda tyres were the OM wheels. 6 months into road riding and went down a hill. Coasted from the top and 30 mph reached and the bend required a bit of steering. Problem was that my MTB with Knobbly tyres got to 37 mph on this hill and the bend was a bit more lean. Chatted to the LBS and a pair of Handbuilts with Mich PR2's in 23 and I was back up to 37mph and the bend was a curve with a bit more lean. Not only had the speed gone up- steering was more precise and handling at speed was better. On top of that it added 2 mph average speed to my 30 mile regular ride.

The OM wheels were in no way anything like the best around but just by improving the wheels and putting on a tyre with less drag and less rolling resistance- the bike was transformed into something a bit better than respectable.

Weigh your bike accurately. NOT with a bathroom scale. If you want to fuss about weight, you need a precise baseline. Digital hanging scale ($25 on Amazon), remove all accessories (bottles, cages, luggage, racks, lights, fenders, etc). To 0.1 lb. Tell us what it weighs.

After you know exactly what your bike weighs, you can assess if it is feasible, desirable, and practical to make it lighter.

You may find that it is reasonably light now. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, and the bikes are lighter too - but they aren't always. I'd be surprised if your bike actually weighed more than a typical Surly. Surlys are not high end bikes, they are heavy steel frames with sound and utilitarian design, and the components are on the lower end. A Cross-Check probably weighs 26 lb in typical build.

If you still want to cut weight, the easiest places to cut weight are
Saddle/post - there are featherweight carbon saddles, if your rear likes that kind of thing
Wheels - these can be moved from bike to bike. Or could simply rebuild your existing hubs with lighter rims and thinner spokes. Go tubulars for least weight.
Tires - quite a variation in tire weights
Chain - there are lightweight chains; that's a lot of metal when you think about it

My Mountain bike is 32 pounds,

My LWB Tour Easy recumbent is 36 pounds plus 5 pounds of junk and my now 180 pound self,

My Delta Trike is 57 pounds plus 5 to 10 pounds of junk

They all ride great, shure the trike rides a bit slower, It don't feel all that safe going fast, hey It's a delta.

I ride for fun, got nothing to prove and I don't race.


Just sayin....

So in summary:

Weight is not important, except for the heavy parts. If you're slow you're doomed whether you ride an Iron Pigeon or a Cervelo. Get light weight wheels, unless you plan on riding on real roads. Weigh your bike, but wait until it takes a dump. None of it matters unless you climb hills. Better still, lose 50 lbs. You'll always be too fat for this sport.

Thats a touring bike - actually one-hell-of-a-nice touring bike! Why go and mess it up? The Blue Ridge has a reputation for feeling slower than it really is. Suggest you check yourself with a spedometer and then check out a few other bikes at the same speeds. You might find some of those other machines just 'feel' faster. Weight helps a bit with acceleration, and counts if you're trying to sprint and achieve a maximum top speed, but isn't all that important if you're just trying to maintain a good average speed over a longer distance.

Without making any judgment on what you want to do or why the answer is lighter parts. Mavic Ksyrum SLRs will save you about 1.5 pounds. Don't know what saddle you are using but a CF Seat post and lighter saddle could knock off another 1/2 pound. CF Bars, new double crankset to replace the triple, if yours still has the stock triple, dump the Chromoly fork for CF. You aren't going to turn it into a 15 pound climbing bike but it will be lighter.

Take off the saddle and put a new carbon fiber bike under it . . .

Here is how to ADD weight to your Blue Ridge!

https://www.pbase.com/canyonlands/image/140865618

There it is. You just cant stress the point. Two summers ago I went from 195 in March to 170 in July while training for my first century. When you drop 5Lbs at that bodyweight you can feel quite "zippy", the difference is very noticeable in terms of feel.

+1. Frame and wheel transplant is the best bet. Or N+1 of course. And then there is always improving power, a slow and painful process at best.

And re an earlier post, the difference between 11.9 and 13 mph is pretty significant in my book. YMMV I guess.

Taking weight off a bike can be equated to what I heard a guy say about boats. A boat is a thing that makes a hole in the water that you fill with money.

As someone else said weight when it comes to an already good bike is over rated. Example is 15 grams less on say a RD worth another $100? Probably not.

Something I saw the other day applies here, I think;

Don't upgrade, go up grades.

https://www.bikepedia.com/QuickBike/B...idge&Type=bike

Touring bikes are not made to be light weight.
They are made to carry weight.

Buy a light weight compact double road bike.

It's all perception:

When I got my 19 lb. Klein, it felt like a feather under me, compared to the 25 lb. bike I was used to riding. Now that I'm used to the Klein....I can no longer feel the difference between the two bikes. And there never was any performance difference.

They did a study years ago: It takes 12 lbs. to make a 1 MPH difference, all other things being equal. 12 pounds!

Jeez ... I've been avoiding this thread, cuz I thought it was about rider weight. Oy.

I'm in general agreement with what's been said here. If you want to seriously reduce weight on your bike, you're probably best off getting a new one. Cutting significant weight off of an existing bike is expensive.

I also agree that if you still want to do it, start with wheels. Then you can move on to seats, seatposts, skewers (good suggestion, BTW) and the like.

How big a deal is the weight of the bike? The engineer in me says forget about it. Lose a few pounds on yourself instead. For pretty much ALL of us, there is a lot more weight savings to be had on ourselves than there is on the bike. And a little bit of weight doesn't make that much difference.

The rider in me says ... well ... I dunno. It may be the placebo effect, but to my mind, I tire less quickly and can go longer and faster on a lighter bike (provided, of course, that is equal in other respects, such as pedaling stiffness).

I've heard all kinds of explanations for this ... most of which revolve around the fact that we aren't just point masses dutifully chugging up the hill at a constant speed and direction. We make zillions of little steering and balance corrections, and the torque we apply to the bottom bracket is not constant. Since we aren't going a constant speed, but are in fact constantly accelerating and decelerating, differences in mass are magnified over what you might expect, and a little weight goes a long way.

If my kids were still doing science fairs, I'd cajole them into doing a study on this.

That's a very good point; and one which I had never considered. Likely explains why I do prefer climbing with my lighter, stiffer bike- even though it is geared much higher than my heavier bike.

I totally agree. I wouldn't have thought so, but just recently I took off my heavy (but very flat resistant!) Conti Gatorskins and replaced them with some light Vittoria tires . . . and WOW, what a difference! Huge difference and very easy to feel when getting up to speed, or grabbing a lot of speed quickly.

I'll probably have more flats now . . . but that's (part of) the price I pay.

Rick / OCRR

Which Gatorskins and which Vittorias? For 700x23C, the Kevlar beaded Gatorskin isn't much heavier than the GP4000S (Conti's flagship tire):

Gatorskin Wire bead: 280g
Gatorskin Kevlar bead: 230g
GP4000S: 205g