skinnyone

Why do all of us go to great extents, in terms of effort and money, to shave off grams and maybe a couple of pounds off your biking gear when reducing your body weight can do the same.

Now I know lot of us guys here are studs but you seen pro athletes???, lot of them are 150-180#s and they look much much bigger than most of us in the forums because they are all muscle. With a season of hardcore riding and maybe some lifting, it should be easy to drop to single digit body fat numbers.

With rotational mass I can understand why lighter is better. But can't you afford to lose a couple of pounds over 2 weeks than buy that new fancy new ultra light frame..

Just a random observation.

mwilding

but shaving 5 grams off headset wieght is weight that STAYS off!

sydney

Sure, but throwing money at it is alot easier than training hard and giving up the beer and pizza. All muscle, no body fat, and older than dirt sydney feels real bad for the for the young crowd on expensive equipment that can't keep up.

53-11_alltheway

First of all, if you are truly down to the low body fat the only place to drop weight is the bike.

Lighter is better, but not as much as you think (many factors are involved in the big picture of powering a bike- aerodynamics, rolling resistance, weight, etc).

The most dramatic effect of a lightweight bike is when you pick it up, not when you are riding it. Sure, better quality bikes respond better, but how harder is your bike to pedal when you add two filled water bottles to it?

telenick

That is a generalization that I'm sure you didn't mean to make.

6' and 160 lbs. doesn't leave me with much to lose. In fact, I'll gain a tiny 'bit of weight and lose fat when I weight lift.

terrymorse 

Bike: 15 lbs
Rider: 135 lbs

I'm at my limit. Dropping a pound off bike or rider would produce ~ 0.5% speed increase uphill. At this point, I'll take every 0.5% improvement I can get. Taking it off the body is not an option.

53-11_alltheway

I guess it depends how much water you are carrying. 1 liter is 1 kilogram, so that's 2.2 lbs. It all adds up. 2 liters and you are talking 4.4 lbs.

telenick

Terry,

EAT A SANDWICH! please...

Voodoo76

Didn't even need to read your original post, or the replys, I already know the answer.

92degrees

I'm not a "weight weenie."

I'm pretty fit.

I don't know what either of my current bikes weigh. I know that the new bike is lighter than the old bike. Not a ton -- the old bike is a compact aluminum frame size small -- but lifting the two bikes, it's pretty clear that the Ti bike is lighter. Maybe it's 1lb, maybe 2lbs. No idea. Partly it's the frame, and partly it's that I opted for lighter components when they were
available and replaceable
affordable
durable

Every day you can read a thread here proclaiming that small weight savings are
unperceivable
a waste of money
a hoax perpetrated by the cycling industry
all about posing

I'm here to tell you
all the little weight savings add up
I notice the lack of weight every time I hit a hill or spin up to speed
from 5' away I can't tell if your bike has a CF bar, seatpost, whatever
I assume that you can't tell what I have either, so I'm not getting much mileage out of posing

Retro Grouch 

Nobody ever wants to talk about the "F" word and isn't that what we're all in it for? Not that "F" word, FUN! To read these posts I'd think that none of the rest of you have ever done anything in your life just for the hell of it. The really funny part is, I'm the one whose supposed to be the grouch.

Now what's more fun, eating a tofu something or bingeing on a hot fudge sundae while you eyeball your new lightweight carbon crankset?

EventServices

Some of it has to do with your own strength-to-weight ratio.

In very general terms:
I weigh X, and I can exert Y.
If I lose weight, I will weigh X-3, but it's also possible that I will then exert Y-3 (or Y-2.746 or maybe Y-1.984)

If I'm 185 and I ride a bike that weighs 18lbs, my total weight it 203.
But if I weigh 183 and ride a bike that weighs 20lbs, I'm also 203, but will I be as fast?

But I see what you're getting at: a 300lb man shaving a bike down to <18lb is absurd.



VooDoo, check my math.

zakk

two!

jeff800

What is your BF, 9%? Unless you have been down to a single digit BF you have no idea. It will take more than hardcore riding and some lifting you are what you eat and proper nutrition is the only way you will see single digit BF. It should be easy bahhahhahhaaa!!

webist

Yes I can. And, I am trying to do just that and more. I am using the bike to do it.

When I buy a bike, I buy the best I can or am willing to afford at the time. As quality improves, it seems bike weight goes down. If something were to break or wear out, I'd replace it with the best quality affordable at the time. Again, with quality it seems light weight is one of the factors.

As to the use of the bike, weight of the equipment doesn't enter my calculation. Things like distance, speed, average speed, whether I am going uphill or not, time on the bike, time in the correct heart rate zone, calories burned, fun, new things to see, are factors I consider. I'll stuff anything into my seat bag, wear a Camelback, carry a lock or water bottle, use MTB shoes on my road bike, carry a wallet instead of just an ID. I really don't factor in weight at all.

I do, however, pay close attention to my body weight from day to day.

cycleprincess

I'm not a racer...but I imagine it's easier to give up some weight off the bike then it is to give up the *cheetoes*.

*ice cream*
*cheesecake*
*pie*...I could go on all day!!

good dog

When we talk % of body fat, what method are we using to come up with that number? My Tanita scale estimates me at anywhere between 7 - 10% and I treat those numbers as a rough estimate. Other more accurate methods seem too cumbersome for your average Joe to want to bother with, but are the Tanita scales reasonably truthful?

mwilding

I was below 10% for a several years without any regard for my diet. If you can survive two of my rugby clubs practices per week and game on saturday and run, ride or blade on every other day, you too can be there - at least until you retire from the game, turn thirty and stop working out altogether...

alison_in_oh

I've heard that their special models with an "athlete" mode are more accurate for the sort of person who tends to carry less fat and be slightly dehydrated from working out.

Skin pinch calipers applied in the three-site by a knowledgeable person is pretty accurate. I can get this done for free at my gym regularly; I'm going to have them do it tomorrow, in fact.

The very most accurate methods involve dunk tanks or x-rays. Those would be pretty cumbersome!

53-11_alltheway

It's all relative.

3lbs for a fit and trim 150 lbs rider is more significant than 3lbs for a 300lbs guy.

Even on a climb a 1% reduction in total weight doesn't translate into a 1% reduction in total work.

You might reduce weight, but other factors like rolling resistance, drivetrain losses and aerodynamics (yes, at 10mph you still have 25% of the air resistance at 20mph) remain constant.

The upshot is you might reduce weight by 1%, but you might only reduce work by 1/2%. Of course the reduction in work correlates with the steepness of the climb.

skinnyone

I just wrote two long winded replies and my browser crashed both times...


Lets just say that I agree with most of the posts and realize that the post was a little misdirected and didnt mean to diss on the regulars or people who can smoke me because they are good. I rathe directed this at poseurs and the guy in my apt who has an oclv, weighs 220 and wants a easton carbon handlebar. Some people are worth the bikes. Some people just want the best. Some people need all the advantage they can get from bike weight savings because they cant loose any more off their bodies..

Ps I was 120 ponds at my 5'11" frame. I am also an ectomorph and I know what single digit body fat numbers mean.. I am not there now though because of grad school and free pizza . It may be easier for me to lose fat than others...

Terry you need more sandwiches...

jeff800

I understand your point, some people just like to have the nice stuff all fluff no go. I ride snowmobiles in the winter and everyone wants more horsepower and lighter parts to go faster. So someone will spent $600 bucks on a lightweight muffler (can) maybe gain 2hp and drop 9lbs from the stock setup. Then the guy riding it weighs 250lbs, 7lbs is equal to 1 hp, drop 50 lbs and wow gain 7hp.

Voodoo76

You forgot the part about the extra weight making you more Aero.

terrymorse 

Depends on the grade and the speed, but not that heavily. From analyticcycling, 75 kg bike+rider, 7% grade, 10 mph:

- reducing the total bike+rider weight by 1% produces a 0.97% reduction in needed power

At that speed and grade, 89% of the power goes into overcoming gravity.

DocFrankenstein

Hehe

I'm 225 and I'm getting myself a nice steel 1970 bike (or around there). I won't ever race for time, and for fitness... even a 10-15% increase in time is miniscule for me.