# 14' Fuji SST



## Fajita Dave (Dec 1, 2015)

This is more of a question of curiosity than me looking to dump a bunch of money into my brand new bike yet. I'm still new to road biking now with 200 miles under my belt after a month and a half. Although my speed is mostly limited by getting into better fitness for road biking my rides usually involve a lot of climbing. I cannot shave anymore weight off of my body so I can't help but wonder if I'd be able to climb better or ride longer with a lighter bike.

So out of curiosity I started to wonder just how much weight I could shave off of my Fuji SST and how much money it would take. The bike is a 2014 Fuji SST 2.0 LE. Ultegra 6800 drive tran besides the crank which is an FSA Gossamer. Oval 527 wheels with some wire bead Vittora tires and Tektro brakes. Handlebars are also oval and made of aluminum, just replaced the saddle to a comfy one and saved 4 ounces in the processes. My saddlebag fully loaded weighs 1lbs 4oz. My bike weighs in right at 20lbs ready to ride (without water bottles).

I feel like with my nice carbon frame it "should" be pretty easy to get this bike down to around 16lbs. Besides the crazy heavy tires that weigh in at 350 grams each how can I possibly shave 4lbs of weight off my bike with already having Ultegra components?

It looks like I can shave about 240 grams with new tires and another 200-300 grams with a reasonably priced (for me) set of wheels. Which is a huge 1 pound of rotating weight gone. I can save another 200 grams if I replace the crank but with those three things combined its only about a pound and a half. Where else could I remove another full 2.5lbs from my bike?


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## Mr645 (Jun 14, 2013)

Perhaps try faster, smoother tires but nothing on that bike is holding you back in any way. With 200 miles under your belt, you have little more then a test ride under your belt. After perhaps 1000 miles or so you will start to see some comfort issues perhaps. But unless you do a lot of climbing, a lot, weight is not going to make any noticeable difference on your bike. Only the fastest, most disciplined racers will notice 2 lbs off of that bike. You can spend money on lighter wheels, handlebars, cranks, cassettes, brakes etc and the only thing you will notice is a lighter wallet. Try a set of 25mm Schawble One tires. Comfy, fast rolling, grippy and good flat protection. With any bike, it's 94.8% engine, 5.2% hardware.


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## Fajita Dave (Dec 1, 2015)

Mr645 said:


> Perhaps try faster, smoother tires but nothing on that bike is holding you back in any way. With 200 miles under your belt, you have little more then a test ride under your belt. After perhaps 1000 miles or so you will start to see some comfort issues perhaps. But unless you do a lot of climbing, a lot, weight is not going to make any noticeable difference on your bike. Only the fastest, most disciplined racers will notice 2 lbs off of that bike. You can spend money on lighter wheels, handlebars, cranks, cassettes, brakes etc and the only thing you will notice is a lighter wallet. Try a set of 25mm Schawble One tires. Comfy, fast rolling, grippy and good flat protection. With any bike, it's 94.8% engine, 5.2% hardware.


Yeah I wasn't looking to go crazy upgrading anything yet. I plan on letting the current tires wear out before replacing them. From what I gather its around 3,000 miles for the rear. I do know my fitness is far more important than the weight of my bike. My average rides do involve about 800ft to 1000ft of climbing for every 10 miles covered. By this autumn I would like to ride the SkyMass route here in Virginia. 84 miles with nearly 7,000ft of climbing. 

The question was more just about curiosity and probably for some future ideas when my fitness catches up. The higher end bikes seem ridiculously light and I see a lot of people quoting their bikes are in the 16lbs range. With the new Fuji SL 1.1 being 11lbs it seems like there should be a lot of easy ways to shave 4lbs off my bike without spending another $2,000 to do it. Since I'm a noob, that is a very uneducated guess.


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## Mr645 (Jun 14, 2013)

You will never notice 2-4 lbs off the bikes weight. for the first couple of years, I would mainly worry about fitment and comfort. A bike that fits well and is comfortable will keep you riding more often and for longer rides. I have a Fuji Altamira and depending on how I load it up it can weigh 17 lbs or 25 lbs and the 25 lbs set up feels a little more sluggish leaving from a stop but overall is not anything I can really notice. Perhaps the lighter set up saves me 30 seconds over 30 miles of riding, but thats nothing you can notice except for race conditions. The bike ready to ride is 17 lbs, but if I add 4 water bottles, lighting and batteries for a 250 mile ride, 4 tubes, spare tire, 8 Co2 carts, tire and tube patch kit, external cell phone battery, sun screen etc, were up over 25 lbs.


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## Fajita Dave (Dec 1, 2015)

Thanks for all of the input. Kind of glad weight wont make that large of a difference. I can't use it as an exuse for being slow on group rides!

I just replaced the saddle which is now very comfortable. No more pain or numbness like the original saddle. Still experimenting with handlebar position but it feels close enough that I'll keep it for a while to see how I adapt.


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## Mr645 (Jun 14, 2013)

A top quality bike fitter can also set you up to me more efficient, which can make you faster. Also, use the drops, that way your wind profile is less. You can probably gain almost 1/2 mph just by being in the drops against the wind as compared to the hoods


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## Rashadabd (Sep 17, 2011)

Wheels are a typical big ticket and big weight reduction upgrade (comparatively). Going to carbon stem, seatpost, and handlebars helps a bit as well. The other big weight reduction is groupset, so moving to Sram Red or Dura Ace can take a decent amount off. I think the challenge for you is that the SST frameset comes from an era when it was expected that aero bikes would be significantly heavier, so it's not the lightest foundation to begin with. My guess is that you can still get pretty close to your goal weight if you truly want to and you are willing to spend the $$$ to get there. Once you do your research on what you would like to swap in, you can find a lot of stuff on ebay or the classifieds here for a decent price if you are patient.

I also recommend checking weight weenies to see if anyone on there has modified a bike like yours to be lighter. My guess is that they have if you just google "Fuji SST and weight weenies."


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## ericm979 (Jun 26, 2005)

You're a rank newbie with 200 miles total under your belt and you're already weight weeniing? Thats like passing your driver's test and immediatly wanting to buy a ferrari.

You can get a LOT faster if you train. Doesn't matter how fit you think you were before starting. Even if you're a champion marathoner you'd get much faster on the bike as you develop the cycling specific muscles. And I bet you can lose weight too. What normal people think is thin is still fat for cycling.

That said you'll feel a difference from switching to good tires. Not the weight so much but the rolling resistance, and ride too. I suggest Conti GP4000S. Your saddle bag is heavy. There's plenty of threads about lighter weight tool kits on weight weenies.

You can see what the effects of losing weight off body or bike (no difference) on climbs is using this model: http://www.analyticcycling.com/ForcesLessWeight_Page.html
It's less than most people think.


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## Fajita Dave (Dec 1, 2015)

ericm979 said:


> You're a rank newbie with 200 miles total under your belt and you're already weight weeniing? Thats like passing your driver's test and immediatly wanting to buy a ferrari.
> 
> You can get a LOT faster if you train. Doesn't matter how fit you think you were before starting. Even if you're a champion marathoner you'd get much faster on the bike as you develop the cycling specific muscles. And I bet you can lose weight too. What normal people think is thin is still fat for cycling.
> 
> ...


Sorry for the long post. It's snowing and I have nothing else to do. 

Thanks for the link. That is pretty amazing how small of a different 5kgs makes on a 10% grade! An average climb on my rides is about an 8% grade. 4lbs might save me about 30 seconds over a 30 mile ride which is definitely not worth dumping money into unless I start racing. I probably was going to buy the Conti GP4000S tires as my next set. My LBS carries them and I like using Conti on my mountain bike. I never would have imagined there would be a significant difference in rolling resistance. Part of this pursuit for being faster is for starting group rides in the spring so tires seem to be a good upgrade. As far as me losing weight goes; any weight I could lose would be muscle. I also rock climb and run OCR races so losing the upper body and core strength isn't really an option.

As a little background for me. I have been mountain biking for 5 years on a 30lbs all mountain bike. I didn't keep track of mileage but rode twice a week. One day about 5 miles, the other 15-20 on a weekend. So my base fitness on a bike is pretty good. I only have 200 miles on the road bike because my time is split between still riding mountain and now riding road. I am really loving the road riding. However, without the technical terrain to keep my mind busy it's easy to wonder how much faster I might climb with a lighter bike or if I were more "aero" on the flats. I definitely didn't realize how much strength road cycling takes. My legs are stronger now but my lungs haven't caught up.

Rashadabd, I was thinking one of my first weight related upgrades would be the stem and bars but I didn't think it would account for much at all. I might be underestimating how much heavier the aluminum is but carbon bars are kinda cheap so it's not a big deal to give it a shot. My seat post is already carbon with a pretty thick aero shape so it might not be very light. I will look into making my saddle bag lighter just for the sake of doing it. I have a minimalistic multi tool, chain breaker, 2 tubes, 2 co2 cartridges w/ threaded inflator, 2 tire levers, small patch kit, and a tire boot out of an old tube. With the wheels off alone it's hard for me to imagine making the frame alone any lighter whether it's aero or not! Fully assembled my front and rear wheels weigh a combined 7lbs which does seem like a lot.

As for bike fitting, I haven't been able to find anyone that does any real detailed fitting around here. I feel like I'll be able to get the fit very close to perfect on my own. I do ride on the drops if I'm moving 15mph+ but aero drag doesn't seem to significant until around 20mph. My average speeds have been around 15mph but my rides are hilly.


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## ericm979 (Jun 26, 2005)

If you've only been mtb riding twice a week your fitness has a lot of room for improvement. If you have the time and inclination. It's not required of course. But if you want to hang in fast race oriented group rides you'll be trying to keep up with guys who ride 15 hours a week. (I'm not sure what sort of group rides you plan to do as you don't say).


It's possible to fit yourself if you pay attention to what your body is telling you. I find it best to start from well known rules of thumb (i.e. the LeMond formula for seat height, KOPS or a bit back for cleat position) and make changes from there. 

I do both mtb and road riding. They're very different. I enjoy the zen-like experience of riding up extended road climbs. It's meditative. And the descents are a lot of fun. Hard group rides and races are fun too.


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## Fajita Dave (Dec 1, 2015)

I plan on riding more in the spring. I work night shift and have 5 hours of free time everyday before I leave along with 3 days off every weekend. One weekend day will be reserved for off-road, weekdays will be on-road. Lately I started using an indoor trainer at least until the snow clears. The boredom is getting a little more bearable but hopefully it will yield some results. I might invest in rollers which could be more fun.

I did use LeMond's method for finding the seat height. At first it felt to low but I actually ended up settling right back to the exact measurement. Having my seat position slightly aft of KOPS has felt more comfortable for me.

I'm loving my road bike for the same zen-like experience it has. 40mph descents are pretty exciting but not quite like downhill on the mtb. My last ride was in 20F degree weather which made it hard to breathe above 30mph. I don't plan on getting into any fast group rides but I am somewhat performance driven. So I'll have to see where that takes me.


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