Greetings,

I have a simple question that may get answered in complicated way, or in basic terms. Any help would be appreciated

Im a fixed gear rider in nyc, rides are for fitness and fun ranging from 10-30 miles. Bridges and some parts of Central Park are the extent of my hills and occasionally defeat me. I’m 6 foot 215 and fit, not super cycling fit. I ride a 48x19 gear ratio and some point would like to get a 17 so I’m not spinning like a lunatic at 30mph, but yes I realize I’ll be walking the bike up more bridges when I’m tired.

Heres the big question though. How much effect would it be if I was able to drop 10lbs of my body and get to 205 assuming I maintain relatively same overall fitness level. There must be a calculator out there in terms of watts/speed and weight maybe even with gear ratios and I just can’t find it. If folks are trying to lose grams of their bike I imagine dropping 10lbs has to be significant right?

Thanks

I can tell you that my wife goes up hills way easier and quicker than I do. She weighs 100 pounds less than me, and we’re on the same model bike. I go down quicker . I weigh about the same as you, but I’m old and trying to drop 20, which seems like a major hurdle. I’m guessing it will help me going up hills, if I can drop some weight. Probably not the scientific answer you’re looking for, but I’m guessing somebody will help with more helpful data.

It does.

I don’t know what you mean by friction, but added weight will increase rolling resistance. Also since weight generally increases the size of the rider, in all likelihood, drag will also increase. Both of these resistance forces are present even in the absence of accelerations.

Amazing. When I said I was going to drop 10 I didn’t plan on losing muscle. I stated same level of fitness. I’m around 14% body fat, maybe I can cut my calf muscle off for 10lbs lol you avoided the question. Tsk tsk

On the gears comment. You know who you are. Way to not add anything to the discussion. After a few hours riding the bridges just isn’t fun to get home

Now to the intelligent fella who shared the article. Thank you. It’s reasonable to expect with the same effort to go almost 2mph faster and have a much easier time on climbs

Ok I see what’s going on here. We all hate the fixed gear guy because you nerds love your gears and think you’re so cool shifting and clipping in, and wear spandex with sewed in diapers and let’s also point out choosing the easiest gear possible to ride in, I see you out there. Option B youre too stupid to understand my initial statement. At no point did I request advice on my bike.

I specifically asked what effect losing 10lbs would be. Think physics not biology. Maybe show some inkling of proof, maybe even a graph or calculation. Duh get some gears. Never should of mentioned the climbs, I apologize for misleading you. But I also stated I’m going 30ph so do you really think I’m out of shape and can’t get up the hills?

Now......with everyone mentioning 10lbs or 4% lighter not going to help much. Clearly you did not bother reading the article that was so politely shared.

I expected some actual inteligent comments here. Clearly the bulk of you spend more time trolling here than riding.

“Here’s another one. On a hilly loop course, a 20-pound weight difference in bikes yielded a 13.6-percent drop in speed. Extrapolating that to your 12-pound weight difference, you’d be looking at an eight-percent speed loss.

Personally, I would find a six-percent or eight-percent speed loss to be rather unbearable, but if you don’t care about that, then no need to spend the extra money”
― Lennard

I too found bikecalculator. A bit disheartening on the physics front but then Ben comes in with real life knowledge and there was much rejoicing. The capillaries guy may in fact be closer to right than I thought.

This is all started when I was chasing this twig of a man through some moderate rolling hills. He was unaware I was racing him of course but it makes it fun. When I finally passed him I saw he was average height and maybe 140lbs soaking wet. Also he had to be at least 60 years old