here's what you do:

put some speed holes in a cannondale
lace your wheels with 4 spokes
ride on bare rims
duck tape a piece of wood to your fork crown for a handlebar
instead of a seat and post tape a piece of cardboard to the top tube
file half the teeth off all your cogs
you don't need bearings

^there's a whole thread with stuff like this^


the thread title should be changed to "i want a fixed-gear for less than $1000"

seriously, most fixed-gears with modern frames are 20 pounds or less.

I was trying to say you can't generalize that one type of pedal is undoubtedly going to be lighter than another. There are lots of pedals out there, each type with a weight range. It's a safer bet to compare one specific product to another rather than rely on a blanket statement.

you could base it around van dessel drag strip courage frameset (1400g, $799), american classic track wheelset (1170g, $489).

Someone earlier in this thread wrote he/she built a 13 pound bike for $500.

With all respect, I suggest he/she weigh the bike again.

I have light everything, including a ti spindle and alloy crank bearing cups.

My bike weighs considerably more than 13 pounds.

=====

In a conversation with the Mercian folks sometime back, they advised against trying to save weight in the frame, especially if one intended to ride on the street.

A famous builder, on his website, has an essay with a similar sentiment, in which he advises saving the weight in the components, especially the wheels, and not in the frame.

For a fixed gear frameset for the street, I favor Reynolds 853 steel (Reynolds 725 steel for the stays and fork), first, and ti a distant second (second because of the cost and the option of dollars better spent elsewhere).

I think the lightest day in and day out wheels one can put on a street fixie would have Dura Ace small flange hubs; an EAI alloy cog; 32 Sapim Aero CX-Ray spokes in back and 28 in front; Sapim Polyax-Nipples; DT Swiss RR 1.1 rims; Salsa ultra-light tubes; and, Continental Grand Prix 4 Season tires.

A person could spend a LOT MORE money and get a marginally lighter but much more fragile wheel than the one described immediately above.
For less money, and only slightly heavier, overall, one can get wheels with significantly lower inertia by choosing the Cane Creek Volos Track wheels: these wheels have no nipples in the rims.
I weigh 235 all up and have ridden the Cane Creek wheels for a year without doing them any favors.
They hold up to hard riding and feel weightless.

Titanium bolts, super-light stem and seatpost, super-light saddle, and a super-light front brake (or no brake) can add up in weight-savings and dollars.

I tried feather-light pedals and they didn't perform well at my weight.
They might for a lighter rider.
In the end, I opted for Shimano's most expensive and lightest two-sided Mountain Bike pedal, which weighs one and a half times and costs twice as much as the super-light pedal, but which takes a beating and keeps on working elegantly.

I put a relatively inexpensive crank on my bike because I liked its bolt pattern for reasons too complex for this post, and it would have cost three times as much to get a lighter crank.

So, my only concessions to weight involved the steel frame, Shimano pedals and good-enough crank.

Oh yes, and definitely go 3/32's and not 1/8.

Anyway, after spending $2400 on light parts, my bike doesn't come anywhere near 13 pounds.
I could not have made it any lighter by throwing more money at it, and I probably could have come in within a few ounces of my final weight for a third of the money.

I consider 15 pounds the practical limit, money-wise and reliability-wise, for a street fixie.

Start with a cheap steel frame and use it as a place to park parts as you acquire them over a few years of collecting, and then get a custom Reynolds 853 frame and transfer all the fancy parts to the custom frame.
Personally, though, I think having a cheap frame with decals helps camouflage the bike.
If I had it to do over, I would go with a Cane Creek headset in order to not have KING on my bike, beckoning to the over-curious.

Take two, three, four or five years to do it.
It makes for a nice hobby and costs a lot less than a car.
Gosh, it costs less than the gas and oil for a car.

i saw one today in a shop. its a nice bike. im not a fan of aluminum for daily street riding, but it looks like a pretty good machine for 1k.

too bad trek is a four letter word on this forum...

vigorelli was the velodrome in milano, outdoor and wooden, which now is in disrepair.
there are other products which use the name - it could be a common italian surname.

drill holes in the frame! sppppeeeeeeeeed holes!

I'm in the same boat as a few fellow members, or simmilar atleast in the aspect that i want a damn light track bike. The Cannondale frame is a good start. I'm still waiting around for a gram scale to have a more precise build guide, however I've done a good bit of "homework" to find good buys, because i want light, but money is still an object. The Cannondale frame is a good start in my opinion. Its aluminum, and it's made by the guys who really have some of the nicest alum frame out, in terms of lightweight, ride quality, stiffness, and finish. I opted for the new 07 capo. Why? IT was a lighter frame over the 03 model, for the older one was painted, whereas this one is raw aluminum with some over it. Also, it was cheap, and had crappy parts, so off the bat I was forced to upgrade..., basically everything. While it is not yet finished, my capo plans are already laid out, weather parts are on order/in transit, or actually in my presence. Sure enough, i have changed out everything except the frame. Here is how it went down.

-What everything else revolves around, the frame, Cannondale's capo, should do for now, at a somewhat burly 1400 grams.(500 bucks)

-Steel bottle braze on bolts, now ti, with a cool anodized red look too. weight savings- probably 4 or 5 grams, but keep in mind every gram counts. (18 bucks)

-Seat post collar, another insignificant/ small part most people only replace if stripped, however switching to an m2racer clamp saves 10 grams. (30 bucks)

-Carbon headset, once again no true benefiet sans saving a few grams, and in the case probably just around 10 or so. ($60)

moving on the bigger things...

-Full carbon fork, jeez maybe just shy of a pound alone over a carbon fork with an aluminum steerer. In this case i went from a decent slice ultra fork to Columbus muscle all carbon as mentioned, with ti dropouts too!
roughly 620 to 300grams (free)

seat-post - i went for one of the lightest offerings available without going over $200, and ended up settling on a full carbon use cyclops, at 169 grams, I've save about a 80 grams over the stock carbon wrapped aluminum seat-post Cannondale jammed in the seat-tube. Heck maybe i'll trim it down too, knock it down to maybe 150! ($110)

-Also, cannondales stock saddle is no lightweight by any means, however an slr sure is, but i plan on doing one better by going with the carbon model, saving another 15 grams, and thats in addition to the 150 grams over the canny seat.($140)

cranks, those rpm ain't got nothing over the fsa pro track i have on the way, but they're light, however, i can't say, or guess by how much just yet. (EST $300)

pedals- this bike is going to be raced, so i wanted something secure, yet light, so i chose keo, carbons to be precise. Maybe a pound over some typical platforms with typical clips and straps. (150 bucks)

cog- dura-ace cog, hell anything is lighter that those damn freewheels
maybe 150grams (20 bucks)

-chain- izumi v maybe 500 grams (60 bucks)

For racing the cockpit is deda aluminum track bars and their corresponding aluminum track stem. I'm sure i could have gone lighter but i need stiff parts up front, and couldn't trust the stock Cannondale stem and bars. Also, the stem is tuned with ti bolts as well. Weight savings maybe a mere 30 grams or so.


However, for riding about off the track i wanted a lighter combo so i have a t2 wing mated to a ritchey stem. The cow-horn style bars and carbon stem are probably close to half , maybe even a third(remember I'm guessing) of the weight of the track set up.

As for the wheels...well, i don't have any. That's my secret for building up a less than 10 pound bike.
Well, actually, i just haven't decided on some hoops just yet, still eying some 1170g American classic tubular's. Otherwise, maybe I'll build something else up from scratch.

Last consideration are some mavic ellipse simply because i can get a good deal on them and i really want to ride this thing!
However whatever i do, i'll probably save a pound or two over the stock Alex formula wheel set.
(500 buck)

tires- my trusty Michelin pro 2 race tires at 220 grams a piece.
(35 bucks)

Math time class

frame- initally 1400
final weight after tuning, swapping seatpost collar and headset-1376
fork- 300
seat-post-150
saddle-120
crank-600
pedals-230
stem-135
bars-400
wheels-1170
chain-500
cog-150
tires-440

estimated total- 5,436 grams

basically 12 lbs flat. theres a few things that force that up, a lock ring, inner tubes, grease, etc, maybe gaing another pound or so. Ultimately, 13 lbs on a ride-able, race-able track bike, thats damn impressive.
As for the pics, i may just wait until its all finished, or until i get a gram scale where i do a detailed build up.


Bottom line, 13 pounds, it's do-able.

Ken,
This was me and here is a front of a bike in 13 pounds config:

This fork is bianchi 320g (uncut) carbon one, making this frame/fork combination about 2kg
Wheel pictured above is shamal, I weighed the bike with the wheels in these pics (the bike is a different one):


890g front, 1160g rear, cog and tubbies included. Funny, this is not even my lightest wheelset - both mavic argent 7 to Record oldie but goodie and 700C zipp303/650C bora sets are lighter. I do not ride anything but tubulars, anyway.

Thus frameset+wheelset =4050g = 9 pounds.

DA Crankset, BB + chain are almost 2 pounds , carbon seatpost (180g uncut), saddle, stem, bars(220g) and brake account for another 2.

The scales show just this: 6kg = 13,22pounds, BTW I got some of the parts NOS, almost all come second hand from Allegro (Polish equivalent of eBay).

I respect what you have to say in most of your posts but claiming you know the weight of my bike better than me sounds amusing.

Odd choice of rim - anything over 450g is not light. For tubulars Mavic CX18s are just as strong and weigh 340g. And for clinchers Mavic MA40s weigh 420, an American Classic CR350 is 380.

Nope I'm right.

Im guessing the pista concept frame weighs about 1400grams
that wheelset i mentioned is about 1300 grams
seatpost 150 grams
saddle 135 grams
hollowtech crankset with only 1 ring and BB 700 grams
chain(116 links) 275 grams
cog + lockring 150grams
lightweight road handlebar 200 grams
syntace stem 100 grams
light weight tufo 125grams a piece
pedals 200 grams
+100 grams for things like headset spacers chain lube, bare tape, and tubular glue.

that build is about sub 5000 grams or 11.36lbs.

i mean not to say i told you so or anything like that.

Only arguing for the sake of it. Bored. But, there's only 13 seatposts that weigh less than 150g. So you can't really really say "any lightweight seatpost" - more like, carefully handpicked ultralightweight seatpost. There's only six headstems that weigh less than 100g too.

AX-Lightness Europa
AX-Lightness Daedalus
New Ultimate
USE Alien Carbon
USE Alien Aluminium
Bold Precision
Heylight HS II Superleicht
Alpha Q Pro Lite
Extralite The Post UL
Felt SM-1
USE Alien Cyclops Carbon
Thomson Masterpiece
Easton EC90

Well good point but the syntace stem is 100grams (100mm) and realtively cheap. I didnt even factor in any AX-Lightness componets in here because no-one is rich enough to really afford that ****, but a AX-Lightness seatpost + saddle combo could probably drop 100 grams off the bike right there.

how heavy is your good-enough crank?

Moving from a "good-enough" crank on my mountain bike to a "good enough but lighter" crank saved me 240 grams. I imagine you'd have less success on a road crank, but there's no way to tell by your description

Sorry, but at the beginning of this thread we had a $1000 budget. I guess I should have been clear and said it couldn't be done for that kind of money.
Fairly easy if you have the dosh to throw at it, I guess.

Haha, vobopl sorta doesn't count in these sorts of debates... he seems to have the maddest hookups for dirt cheap exotic parts and lives in cheapish (it seems) Poland.
Ken Cox was probably right that 13lbs is not normally doable for $500.

A guy I know rides a Trek T1 on the street every day (their largest 62 cm frame) and it is all stock except the seatpost (Thomson Elite) and pedals (Road pedals, not sure which ones). With a front brake, he says it weighs 16 lbs total (as weighed at the bike shop he works at).

So, even if the OP were not to change out the pedals and seatpost, he’s probably still looking at only a 16 or 17lb bike. To me, that is “light enough” and I don’t know if it’s worth spending the kind of dough described in previous posts just to make it 2-3 lbs lighter (but that is just me since I don't have that much cash), and in any case the OP specified $1K.

While you could spend a lot of time accumulating light parts for good deals (yes, I know how fun that is), if the OP wants to just plop down $1K and get a light, off-the-shelf, complete bike, is there any out there for $1K or less that is lighter than the Trek T1 at 16lbs?

I'm also asking since I'm thinking about getting one too... the Surly I ride has some light parts, but it's still a tank. Even my road bike (a Trek 2100, which I love), is noticeably lighter than my Surly.

Yes, amusing.

However, with friendly respect, I would suggest to vopobl that I questioned not the weight of the bike but the ability to do it for $500.

That "$" symbol usually means US dollars.

I submit that vopobl cannot reproduce his bike for 500 US dollars.

My bike costs $2400 and I agonized over every penny (kids at home, kids in college, mortgage, medical bills, groceries, etc.).

In a post above, Jimbo added up the grams on his bike for a total of about 13 pounds, and I would like to see him similarly add up the dollars it cost to get to that light weight, including the original frame (no free lunch).

By the way, I really enjoyed Jimbo's discussion of the subject.

I would like a carbon fork (like Jimbo's), but I can't find one with the rake I want (33mm or less), so I stick with my 28mm rake steel fork.

I remain open to a new carbon fork.

Suggestions?

Sixteen pounds sounds attractively light, to me, especially if one considers how much a geared bike of similar weight would cost.

I think of anything 18 pounds or lighter as LIGHT.

Incidentally, my older son, a college athlete, has two Olympians for coaches, and they tell him a pound on the bike equals seven pounds on the body, in terms of performance.

If a person already rides at his or her lightest long-term healthy weight, he can take the equivalent of seven pounds off of his or her body for every pound he can take off his bike.

Double-incidentally, I forgot to mention I like vopobl's bike.
Thanks for the pictures.

Haha why all the hate for aluminum (er, aluminium) frames for everyday use? I'd like to hear valid reasons why besides the "aluminum is harsher" rhetoric that has been proven totally false over and over..

I like the DT Swiss rims because they weigh 415g, they have steel eyelets (important with alloy nipples), and have a reputation for indestructibility.
I ride a lot at night, and I need a wheel that can hit the unexpected and survive.
Y'know what I mean?
I ride with a 10w headlamp, but a dark night, wet pavement, and opposing car headlights can hide a pothole.
The DT Swiss RR 1.1 rims at 415g (with steel eyelets) represent the bottom edge of lightness for me.

The same thing goes for tires.

I have ridden with lighter tires than my present Conti Grand Prix 4 Season (front) and Armadillo (rear) combination, but I either got flats or, as in the case of one ultra-light flat-resistant tire, they got so chewed up in such a short period of time I knew a flat would soon occur.

In any event, the Cane Creek Volos come so close in weight to the lightest reliable wheel I can build, and the Cane Creeks do it for less money and FEEL so light because of their low rotating inertia, that it makes sense to just go with the Cane Creeks.

I had doubts about the Cane Creeks with 28 spokes, especially at my riding weight (215-235), but they have proven, so far, bulletproof.

My lbs has watched these Cane Creek wheels closely to see how they hold up.
Every time I go in to my lbs (WebCyclery) they check out the wheels and comment on how tight they feel and how well they've held their true.
I've easily got 5000 miles on them and have done nothing to maintain them other than clean them.

wonderful. now i want a trek t1 and the cane creek volos. and if i sell my kidney to pay for it, i might drop some weight too! now how can i lose 7 more pounds...

It's a Milanese velodrome:

https://vigorelli.org

in the fall of 2005 i built a fixed gear ride that weighs under 15 with the heavy wheels and close to 13.5 with my Zipps... it cost me a heckuva lot more than $1000

13 pounds or less, $500 or less (yes, it is USD)
Challenge accepted just give me some time.