Oh, I haven't missed the point. I totally agree. But I think in practice that it's really more of a potential advantage. It's there for the taking - we just have to minimize all the other stuff to really take FULL advantage of it.
Otherwise, I believe it's a very slight advantage (YES, still an advantage) for certain segments of a day.
Regardless of that, a lighter weight bike should be a bigger advantage as the ride goes on. I would think it would affect stamina, thereby making the "lighter bike faster" as the day goes on.

You are talking about turning in a low time, not relatively low, but absolutely low. That is what is meant when you say minimize all the stuff and it is only a potential advantage not an actual advantage. But that wasn't Stanseven's point. He meant that no matter how you ride, no matter how much speed you always leave on the table due to the same bad position or the same slacking or being a porker and the same amount overweight, a lighter bike will make you faster. Period. It's relative, not absolute. Relative to how you always ride on a heavier bike vs. a lighter bike. Why is this so hard to understand?

Anyway. Hey man, I used that cool calculator and it didn't show any difference when I droped an ounce of weight. It must not be right because of physics and stuff :lol:

Definitely not right as my research clearly states.

Well that's what I asked. You still have yet to say how much weight difference you were personally talking about unless I missed it. I mean we could have calculated that. And in any case, with the fluctuation in numbers you've posted, you have no clue whatsoever how much faster a drop in weight made you or if it did at all. You just cannot say. Why? Because there's too many factors involved. But then we get back to the "real world" that you and others have mocked me for saying.

This debate was over before it started. It's like a political discussion. No one ever changes anyone's mind on a subject, one person will say something, someone else will throw out a google link or chart to prove their opinion, people start mocking people, one person will try to sound more intellectual than the other and it just spirals downhill. This subject hit rock bottom when an obviously new rider tried to tell ME that one friggin ounce will in fact make me faster. I mean there's just not much else to say after that.

If you're faster, real or imagined, then that's all that matters in the end. Just ride, man and don't obsess over a pound here or there. You won't be faster :p

Yes, but you and I are essentially saying the same thing- you're just saying it in a more egg-headish way ;p

True. I'm Cat. 2 on Mars.

...I have designed an alternative experimental model, based on Galileo's famous one using the tower at Pisa. If his experience and the simple mechanics hold true, I anticipate that both riders (both your A case and your B case) will reach terminal velocity just prior to impact. This is still in the realm of theory, though. It will take a while to set it up. :)

Not a relativity expert, are you? I was going faster (thanks to the weight reduction inside my intestine), so I bent space around me even more, hence the discrepancy in distances.

Like I said earlier, there is no data that I could provide to you that would convince you. Why ask the question when you've already decided your answer? You're probably the type that thinks that while a McDonald's milkshake contains 820 calories in total, if you take tiny, tiny sips throughout the evening, each sip has a negligible amount of calories so in the end you don't gain an ounce. A 10mph tailwind can increase your speed by 7mph but a 2mph tailwind is just too small to have any effect so it's a wash.

...elimination of tail and headwinds is exactly the reason I designed my tower experiment. :)

Can't wait to see the results. Hope it doesn't turn into a wash.

I took the bar tape off my bike today....going for a KOM. ;). The weight of it really makes a difference. I also sanded off the paint and drilled holes in the stem.

You would probably be able to achives warp speed .

If I break my 30 lbs of touring gear into 2 lb parcels, I should be able to load them on the bike sequentially and see no performance impact, right? If 2 lb = 0 difference, then 15 x 2 lb = 0 difference.

What kind of sandbagging contradiction is that?

Wait...wait....if you dropped a 17 lb. bike and a 22 lb. bike froim the top of the Empire State Building, which one would get stolen first?

I must have missed the posts where you were anything but dismissive and condescending of the practices of those who are serious about improving the engine. JRA will only allow you to maintain your plateau. You are a pretender at best.

Riding up and down hills is not the same thing as doing intervals. This paragraph says you are not seriously interested in improving your performance. You are interested in riding and enjoying the ride. Nothing wrong with that. But don't kid yourself.

No one is claiming a linear relationship between weight and speed. That's just one of your straw men. And "minute" is not synonymous with "none", yet you insist on using the terms interchangeably.

Your inability to perceive a difference has nothing to do with the existence of a difference.

You insist that weight is "pointless" and yet a 2% decrease in weight has essentially equal importance as a 2% increase in power in the classic cycling power/weight measure. You might recall ignoring my correction of that erroneous assertion that you made once already. I am sure you will ignore it again because despite your protests, you really aren't interested in the hard work involved in improving your cycling performance.

It reads to me like the sandbagging contradiction of the eternally incorrect.

...I think this might be true, but would require Quantum mechanics to prove it. If you treat it as a Riemann sum, you'll get the contrary result. IOW, you'll go faster if you follow the example of Schrodinger's cat.

Here is a man who truly understands .... <applause>

Mods: Can you rename this and all subsequent similar threads "Meditations upon Lazyass' First Law of Number 2?" And then First Variation, Second Variation, etc., I suppose.

True- I am not "serious", in the sense that achieving greater speed is not my top priority when riding- it is just a priority. But I can tell you that since taking up cycling a few years ago, my speed has increased and the hills are a lot easier- just putting in the time, and being forced to ride hills does make one stronger/faster. Yes, one could probably get even faster/stronger with some kind of structured training program if they care to- but then again, do those gains come from the program, or just because someone who follows such a program just naturally rides more? Either way, where does having a bike which is a few ounces or a few pounds lighter figure into all of this?



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Ah, but it does, because considering that cycling is a recreational activity, I derive no benefit from a difference which is too small or inconsequential to perceive- therefore it is of no value- such would be like taking a walk and saying "I did that walk in 16,000 steps instead of 16,032 steps!". Such a fact has no bearing on anything, because it's existence is purelyu academic.

I thought we agreed that such relationships were not proportional nor linear- but you're now asserting that they are again?

And believe me, I work hard when I ride- not because I want to, but because the terrain where I live doesn't allow for any such thing as an "easy ride"- but wish I had that option, because I am not the compulsive type, -I'm not obsessed with just getting stronger/faster, because, while it may be "neat", really, the modest gains I am likely to make really don't add anything to my riding enjoyment- it's not as though one can feel a huge difference between say 15MPH and 16.5MPH.

When you first start out, you will build fitness of course. But you will plateau and get to a state where you simply maintain, and building your form is increasingly difficult. Where bike weight fits in is -- if marginal improvements in your fitness (your power and weight) aren't important to you, your bike weight probably isn't either. If they are important to you, then bike weight probably is. The significance is up to you to decide for yourself and no one else.

You are not the world. It exists even if it doesn't matter to you, just as things exist that don't matter to me. The thing and the value of the thing are separate and distinct concepts. It's not purely academic.

Try to follow along. We agreed that bicycle weight reduction and average speed increase are not linear. We apparently disagree that there is even a relationship below certain nebulous thresholds, with you saying they disappear and me saying they exist even if you nor I can detect them.

I do assert that there is a linear relationship between power and power-to-weight, and an inversely proportional relationship between weight and power-to-weight. I really hope you don't seriously disagree with that.

So you aren't interested enough in getting stronger/faster to make a conscious effort to improve. (And making an effort to do something does not make one "compulsive" by the way. Your constant personality disorder diagnoses are really tiresome and annoying.) A combination of JRA and wishful thinking is not a recipe for continued improvement -- it may be a recipe for your continued enjoyment of cycling and for that I say carry on. But stop proclaiming that if it ain't important to Stucky, it ain't important to anyone.

The very, very, modest gain in speed you may get from losing a little weight on the bike does not deserve this thread nor this level of discussion....

It really doesn't.

We should be arguing aerodynamics...that could get really interesting.


Lazyass is totally correct.


You got me....apparently it is a huge...huge deal.