How To Make Your Road Bike Lighter Without Upgrading To A Carbon Frame
Saving weight from your road bike will always make it feel more lively and will make riding up those hills much easier. However, rather than spending loads of money to go and buy yourself a brand new carbon road bike, instead you should consider some of these upgrades as a slightly more cost efficient way to drop some weight and some of them are completely free! Cycling Weekly's Sam Gupta has pulled together a bunch of tips for you all to explore as a way to drop some weight from your bikes. Which are you going to try?
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00:00We all want to save more weight from our bikes, right? Well, after building up my new Émonda,
00:04I thought I would share five ways that I'm planning on shedding a few grams, but
00:10they might not be in the way that you would expect. First off, I'm going to start at the seat post.
00:16The first thing that we can all do is mark where our seat post height is, pull out the seat post
00:21from the frame, measure the minimum insertion and then add that to the bottom of your marked
00:26seat post height because what you may end up with is a section of seat post that can be cut off.
00:33I've already done this myself and I ended up being able to take off about 10 centimeters
00:37worth of seat post, which saved me a fairly decent 30 grams. For what is essentially a free win,
00:45I don't think that's bad at all. But it doesn't just stop there because I have found a solution
00:51to my fairly unattractive seat clamp collar. Instead of the original unit, I found this
00:56pro performance seat clamp, which isn't actually going to provide any sort of weight saving,
01:02but it does just look a whole lot better. And if you want one for yourself,
01:06then I have left a link down in the description below. Before we move on to a different area of
01:11the bike, I do want to share one more recommendation, which I myself won't be doing,
01:15but it could be ideal for one of you lovely viewers. And that is to look at a specialist
01:21seat post manufacturer like Durimo. Now, Durimo is a Spanish brand and they make some incredibly
01:28lightweight components. For example, they make a 350 mil, 27.2 post, which comes in at a claimed
01:3580 grams, which is seriously light. They also make, though, proprietary posts for the likes
01:42of the Tarmac SLA. So this gain isn't just reserved for those with standard components.
01:48Wheels are often seen as the place to drop weight. But what if you already have a set
01:54of swanky lightweight wheels? Well, you can't forget all of the things that are attached
01:59to your wheels. Firstly, the tires are a pretty large component and they obviously sit right at
02:05the very edge of the rotational mass. So weight saved here can return much larger gains in ride
02:11and acceleration feel. So if you're running some all season tires like I am in the form of the
02:17Specialized S-Works Mondos, then consider opting for some summer specific jobbies like these GP5000
02:25TTTRs. These are going to save me about 200 grams compared to the Mondos, which is great.
02:32Of course, this is a change that I'll be making when the roads get a little bit drier,
02:37but the savings don't stop there. Cassettes actually carry a fair bit of mass to them since
02:42there is a lot of metal work going on there. So if you do have the funds, it could be worth looking
02:48further up the range and getting a cassette which adopts a more advanced construction method and
02:53makes use of fancier materials. For example, the difference between this Ultegra cassette and this
02:59Dura-Ace cassette is 62 grams. Yes, it's not cheap, but as a way to drop a fair bit of weight
03:06without needing to adopt a whole Dura-Ace groupset, this in my eyes is money well spent.
03:11I have also done some digging and found a pretty decent price on a Dura-Ace cassette,
03:16which I've linked down in the description. The other component to consider on the wheels
03:20are your rotors, and this is where you could end up spending a lot of money,
03:25but for a much smaller gain. Again, I won't be doing this one myself, but if you do want to be
03:31as cool as Taddy Pogacar, then you could opt for some carbon tie rotors. Compared to Ultegra spec
03:37rotors, they'll save you about 16 grams per wheel for a total saving of just over 30 grams, which
03:44is obviously very small, but maybe this one is more about the bling factor. Saving money and weight
03:52don't always go hand in hand, but when we look at the cockpit of the bike, there is an opportunity
03:57to do just that. I've been running the Garmin Edge 1040 Solar for nearly a year and a half now,
04:03but despite the vast amount of functionality that this thing provides, you just cannot escape the
04:09size of it. So, downsizing to a 540 or an 840 will not only be a cheaper option, but it reduces the
04:17weight by nearly 46 grams, and that's not bad at all. If you shop around, then you can often find
04:24really good deals on head units, and I've linked a really good one down in the description.
04:30That's not the only thing that can be done in the cockpit area, because much like how I was able to
04:35save weight by removing excess seat post length, I can also do the same at my head tube by removing
04:41excess steerer tube length. I can also replace these alloy spacers with carbon ones for an
04:47albeit very small saving, but these carbon spacers only cost a few pounds. For those of you running
04:54integrated computer mounts, like the one that comes with the Roval handlebars, it could be worth
04:59investing in a 3D printed option instead. For the real weight weenies out there, some aluminium
05:05mounts can actually weigh significantly more than a 3D printed equivalent. If we take the Roval one
05:11as an example, the standard unit weighs 53.3 grams, while a 3D printed alternative comes in at 26.1
05:19grams. That is certainly an easy win, and again, can often be cheaper. There are other things that
05:25most of us can do to help shave weight off our bikes, like adopting a carbon bottle cage.
05:31Thankfully, these no longer have to be super expensive. For example, if we compare a fairly
05:37standard bottle cage with a carbon one, there's a potential saving of about 20 grams per cage. Now,
05:43for an upgrade that doesn't need to cost the earth anymore, I think this is one well worth going for.
05:48One which certainly is not for the masses and is reserved for those true weight weenies with
05:54money to burn are carbon tie chain rings. They are eye-wateringly expensive, but after seeing
06:02them on Tani Pogacar's bike, I really can't stop thinking about them. However, these rings will
06:07never be going anywhere near my bike. For me, they just cost too much money to justify putting them on
06:13an aluminium bike, but I think we can all take a second to just admire
06:18quite how pretty they are. In total then, across all these little changes,
06:23I think I'm going to be able to save a not insignificant 300 to 400 grams. Most of these
06:29savings have either been free or only cost sub 50 quid. It's the big ticket items like the cassette,
06:35head unit, and tires which will up the price, but as mentioned, deals can always be found on
06:41these things. I've done my best to link all of those down below.