# Affordably Shavin some weight- off bike



## JPN_halfblood1 (Apr 26, 2012)

hi my name is kota, 

I bought a cdale , been riding it for about 3months.
its a carbon frame.. but when i had it weighed when i took it in for maintenance, the scale at the place said 8.47kg.... kind of heavy dontcha think? 
I wanna get down to at least 7.5kg.. without spending a fortune. how should i go about doing this? Any recommendations or good affordable brands or even models i should switch to?

additional info.. 
Components - (including brakes, shifters) are 105 shimano
Crank set is FSA gossamer compact - 810 grams. (kinda heavy, maybe replace this, but with what?)
Wheel set - Mavic Aksiums(these are also heavy 1800grams for the set)
Seat Post/Seat - not sure how much it weighs but it feels heavy.
Pedals are ultegra ( going to keep these, pretty light, even when compared to duraace)
Handle bars/stem- aluminum, seem heavy, maybe swich these, from what ive researched, light handle bars/stem seem prettty affordable and shave alot of weight. 
-56cm frame , i am 71kg/181cm tall,age 20/ amateure rider.


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## Guod (Jun 9, 2011)

Start with wheels and tires first. The handle bars and stem will actually give you the least bang for the buck, most aluminum is really close to carbon in weight if not lighter in some cases. Also, consider that you're putting stuff on a bike with a relatively heavy component set. A set of wheels in the 1500g range could be had for not too much money, but that's as far as I would go. You'll see diminishing returns beyond that.


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## JPN_halfblood1 (Apr 26, 2012)

cool man. maybe this is wrong thread. whatever. lol
the lbs dude said new wheels are the first thing to do too. i think i may do that


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## GoldenR (Apr 22, 2012)

This is the perfect place for the thread, although its a topic thats starts lots of arguments.

There have been alot of threads covering the topic, do some searching and browsing you will find what works for your goals and budget.

There are not a lot of big weight items to be replaced. Im in a similar situation, from what ive seen in the threads, wheels are a good place to start.


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## Camilo (Jun 23, 2007)

You're looking for 2 lbs, or one KG. (by the way, for conversation's sake, I use a pound to approximate 1/2 kg, even though I know it isn't the same.)

This is the order I'd do it; the first 1/2 kg will cost you $50 -$200, the second 1/2 kg, $300-400+ and if you want to go further and approach that magical 7 kg mark, spend another $500-$1,000 for the final 1/2 kg. 

First: Tires and tubes: depending on what you have now, you can lose up to a pound with good quality, lightweight tires and tubes, it's easy to lose 1/2 pound most of the time. This is probably your cheapest way to lose a pound, especially if you're in the market for new tires. You can find Michelin Pro Race 3's on closeout for $30-$40 each. Buy generic lightweight tubes for $5-10 each. 

For example, my current tires + tubes weigh 570 grams total (2X215 for the tires, 2X70 for the tubes) compared to over 1,000 gm (2X 375 tires, 2X 130 tubes), savings of close to a pound! It cost me about $75 total, but I really don't consider it a weight losing expense since I had to replace the tires anyway, and the new tires and tubes made a noticable improvement in my ride. Of course YMMV.

Second: fit items can be replaced with lighter items - handlebar, stem, saddle, seatpost, even bar tape. This is expensive if you're just doing it to lose weight, but not horribly so if you actually have a good reason to change them. The price differential between cheap/heavy and light can be just $25 or so each, depending on how you go. You can lose another pound with these items @ 1-4 ounces per item, about $50-100 per item, assuming your bike is typical with pretty heavy stock items here. 

Third: wheels. The Aksiums are very decent wheels. A little heavy, yes (what are they ~1800 grams?) To loose a pound here will cost you $3-500. A 1450-1550 gram wheelset can be found in that range, but to get lighter will cost you big bucks. So without spending a lot of money, you'll be lucky to lose a full pound here.

Like the wheels, the 105 group is a good group, but it is the final area where you can lose weight. I don't know any numbers here, but the Sram groups and higher end Campy and Shimano can save you another pound or two, but you'll be spending some money.

Except for the tires, you can sell your old stuff on ebay, but it won't fetch much... but it will help.

I enjoy doing this stuff, but do it slowly and when the bargains present themselves.


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## Guest (May 8, 2012)

I'd say the main reason the wheels are a good place to spend money is they can easily be "brought with you" if you ever get a new bike. Upgrading individual drivetrain components prematurely is probably the worst route to take as you'll end up with "orphan" components If you ever get a new bike you can move move your new wheels and fit items like saddle with you to the new bike, and selling your old complete bike.

Or, as has been mentioned, if you're replacing items that are worn out anyway, you can shave a few grams here and there without spending too much on the margin, rather than throwing away perfectly good components. In my case I actually have two "tiers" of bikes -- my regular road bike, and a commuter bike. My cheap commuter bike came with a cheap heavy seatpost with a lot of setback. Based on my body type I tend to sit pretty far forward on the pedals and had the saddle slammed all the way forward on the rails, so I decided to "trickled down" the seatpost from my main road bike which had less setback, then purchased a nicer, lighter post to replace _that_ one. This way the only part added to my "junk pile" was the boat anchor post from my cheap bike.


I did think of one "freebie" -- In the case of your seatpost it may be possible to hacksaw some of the length off (as long as you have more than the minimum insertion length worth of post still inside the frame), especially if you have a fairly portly post that's an easy "free" option to shave some weight.


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## JPN_halfblood1 (Apr 26, 2012)

yea cool thanks for advice. i changed my wheels , now the pair together weighs about 1580grams. my bike is now boarderline 8kg. 
thinking about changing my stem and handlebars. I just slammed my stem (flipped stem or whatever you call it) and it felt pretty heavy. prolly get something a little bit shorter and lighter along with new handlebars. :thumbsup:

by the way are carbon handlbars any good? they seem fragile and kind of ugly... a little bit. , how they are all flat and aero looking, wouldnt look too good on my bike.
MAybe ther are light alu handle bars , not sure whats good though:aureola:


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## c_h_i_n_a_m_a_n (Mar 3, 2012)

wheels ... you have already done that ...

if you are looking to shave more weight then it will cost a bit more ... 100g off your saddle or crank or bars/stem ... look in ebay for a good 2nd hand is what I do ...

if you only wish to have carbon in your frame ... look into 'kcnc' for alloy stem/bars/seatpost etc.


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## Camilo (Jun 23, 2007)

Still don't know if you have lightweight tires and tubes - best bang for the buck out there if you replace heavy with light and find the tires on sale.


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## feeex (Dec 6, 2011)

As others have said, tyres and tubes if not already done. Could save you as much as 400g.

Then I'd consider your saddle. If you're still on the standard one, you can easily loose 150-200g by swapping it for an SLR or cheap eBay carbon one. 

The trouble is, it's worthwhile considering why you're doing this. My bike is down at 6.2kg but I've recently replaced my very light saddle with a heavier but significantly more comfortable one. Lightweight saddles might be ok for 30km but my SLR used to leave me in agony when going for 100km or so. Lighter isn't necessarily better.


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## JPN_halfblood1 (Apr 26, 2012)

yea havnt decided on tires or tubes yet.

I agrreee with the carbon saddles being terrible. thought i just might change the stem to carbon.


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## Mdeth1313 (Nov 1, 2001)

JPN_halfblood1 said:


> yea havnt decided on tires or tubes yet.
> 
> I agrreee with the carbon saddles being terrible. thought i just might change the stem to carbon.




If the saddle shape fits your body well and you have a good fit to your bike, padding should not matter. I've been riding all carbon saddles for the past 5 years with zero issues. This includes back to back 100+ mile days and double centuries. 

Everyone is different, but statements like the above are somewhat misleading.


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## zender (Jun 20, 2009)

Did you actually weigh the old and new wheels (with qr's) to get those +s? Or are those manufacturer reported weights?


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## JPN_halfblood1 (Apr 26, 2012)

no , its manufacture reported weight, for both the old and new wheels, probably not accurate. Ill buy a scale soon. 

The weight for both the new wheels and old wheels are not including tires or tubes ., i believe. Well at least not for the new wheels. Not sure about the aksuims.


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## Camilo (Jun 23, 2007)

Wheels are weighed usually completely bare - no rim tape, no QR's. At least the wheels I've bought will only match published weights that way.

So then, you get to save weight by buying super light tape (or better yet velo plugs!), and lightweight skewers. You can easily save a couple ounces on even moderately priced lightweight skewers, and another ounce by using veloplugs instead of rim tape. 

Just a big FWIW, but again, a couple of cheap ways to save a few ounces... there's another almost quarter pound!


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## zender (Jun 20, 2009)

Cool. The reason I asked is that reported weights are often quite a bit off. For a wheel, they of course don't add the weight of the QR and rim tape. For a frame, barrel adjusters, seatpost clamp, derailleur hanger, bottle cage bolts are often not included and of course the claimed weight is often the smallest size they make. Anyway, if you are going to spend money to shave weight, I think the first thing to get is the scale. I bought a $10 digital fishook type scale that's pretty good for complete bikes and a tabletop scale for small bits. Anyway, good luck with the weight reduction.


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## JPN_halfblood1 (Apr 26, 2012)

yea ill post an update when i finish for the time being. ill add a pic or sumthin .
For now, i just need to wear out and ride out these stock wheels. then upgrade to my new wheelset just sittin here beside me


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## Camilo (Jun 23, 2007)

zender said:


> Cool. The reason I asked is that reported weights are often quite a bit off. For a wheel, they of course don't add the weight of the QR and rim tape. For a frame, barrel adjusters, seatpost clamp, derailleur hanger, bottle cage bolts are often not included and of course the claimed weight is often the smallest size they make. Anyway, if you are going to spend money to shave weight, I think the first thing to get is the scale. I bought a $10 digital fishook type scale that's pretty good for complete bikes and a tabletop scale for small bits. Anyway, good luck with the weight reduction.


My 2010 Felt ZC frame's weight was listed on their website exacly as delivered, which included the bolts for the bottle cages, the seat post collar and the two barrel adjusters on the down tube. I weighed it and it was within, if I recall, 5 or 10 grams. I can't remember which size frame they listed, but I think it was a medium-ish frame, not the smallest. Mine's a 54 so it would be close either way. I think Felt is known for honest weights.

Same with the fork. Forks of course are listed with full length steer tubes, no crown race, no headset parts.


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## zender (Jun 20, 2009)

And hence the word "often" in my post. I don't see your Felt on the weightweenies spreadsheet, but there are quite a few frames that weigh more than advertised. I admit that the data is getting a bit long in the tooth and who knows how reliable the actual weights people post up there are, but there sure seems to be a trend.

Weight Weenies - Road Frames


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## Camilo (Jun 23, 2007)

zender said:


> And hence the word "often" in my post. I don't see your Felt on the weightweenies spreadsheet, but there are quite a few frames that weigh more than advertised. I admit that the data is getting a bit long in the tooth and who knows how reliable the actual weights people post up there are, but there sure seems to be a trend.
> 
> Weight Weenies - Road Frames


I absolutely agree that it's much more normal that advertised weights are inacurrate or misleading. I was just pointing out as a FWIW that Felt has a reputation for accurate weights, and my experience.

But, actually, my frame is on the current weight weenies spreadsheet - but not on the old listings page you pointed to. That listing page has not accepted new entries for a couple of years (my understanding) and all new listings are on a google spreadsheet that is a subforum within the forums under "Listings" (you might not see the Listings subforum unless you sign in though). 

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spr...MQktYcmRoT3RucVE&f=true&noheader=false&gid=43

Here's my entry on that spreadsheet (1093 grams... IIRC, the advertised weight was either 1090 or 1095):

Felt ZC 1093 2010 54 cm Includes bottle cage bolts


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## Iwannapodiumgirl (Jun 26, 2002)

back in the day we use to drill stuff! can you drill the chain rings? maybe the crank arms too? i saw a nuovo record seatpost drilled once... it was da' bomb!


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## zender (Jun 20, 2009)

Iwannapodiumgirl said:


> back in the day we use to drill stuff! can you drill the chain rings? maybe the crank arms too? i saw a nuovo record seatpost drilled once... it was da' bomb!


I remember at a Mt. bike race in the 90s one shop had a water bottle that was all drilled out. The ad copy said "shaves 5g, more if you include the fact that it doesn't hold water"


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