Asortablog
http://homepage.mac.com/rsmith85/blogwavestudio/
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| Cool Bikes | | Date Created: 06 Dec, 2006, 08:00 PM |
| Time Flies, I don't | | Date Created: 06 Dec, 2006, 07:30 PM |
Well it is now a ridiculously long time since I added anything to this website, so i thought I would now!
Went on a fantastic cycling weekend with some mates up in my home county of Northumberland. We cycled from Morpeth, along to hadrians wall and then up to Once Brewed YHA. About 40 miles, but not really more than a warm up. Unfortunately one of our new arrivals to the group (the last trip we did was the coast to coast, this time we had lost a recruit from that trip but got another willing recruit) slightly underestimated how much work even just 40 miles is, it took a long time to get there, but we did!
The next day the lost recruit turned up in his car, and unfortunately his replacement dropped out due to the results of saddles on an untrained bum and hills on untrained legs. It rained and rained so we spent the morning waiting it out in the visitors centre and a museum. Finally we went off for a cycle to Bellingham, which involved some excellent fast bridleways. Very rocky but my road bike and tyres didn't have a problem and I managed to keep up with the rest on their mountain bikes.
Last day involved too much mud on the off roads for skinny road tyres, but I made it up most of the hills. A great holiday, perhaps I may put up some photos when I can be arsed!
Been running a bit recently, cycling a bit and playing rugby which seems to stop me running and cycling for half a week due to broken bits of my anatomy (back, knees, shoulders, ankles, legs etc.). So not really pushing it too much.
Found a great website for some pretty good rants. Sent an email thanking the author and got this reply:
>Thanks for your effort, I love finding information like this on the web.
" You're very welcome.
Always have time for a man who going weight-weenie over a Planet X bike...
(I've got the carbon Chorus bottle cages on my Pinarello)
Cheers, Sam" |
| Shaving Weight: Not my legs! | | Date Created: 03 May, 2006, 12:13 AM |
| Well my bike is certainly light, even with those 32 spoke DN6/105 wheels and spare tyres (that I had off my old bike). I had a look around a really great bike store in Keswick at the weekend (The one attached to the Pedlars Cafe) and picked up a few of the bikes on display and despite trying a £2k Trek OCLV with Ultegra my Larger Framed Planet-X with specially selected components still was lighter. |
But I really think that I can knock the weight down a bit more on the bike and so today I fitted some Planet-X Carbon Fibre Bottle Cages to my steed. I got these purely on a whim and love them to bits. They seem solid enough to cope with riding because of their flexibility and gripped the bottles brilliantly despite riding on Sheffield roads (really badly surfaced).
Back to the weight though, these bottle cages weigh in at 22g each which gives me a total of 44g for the two. The bottle cages previously attached (Elite Ciussi Gel) weighed in at 82g each e.g. 164g in total.
Therefore a weight saving of 120g has been made over the previous setup which on a bike as light as this is pretty impressive (0.3 pounds) but expensive at £36. Thats 3.33g per pound sterling. Strewth!
Next up:
- Tyres: Perhaps not the lightest but a set of Vredestein Tricomp tyres will drop a few gramms (approx 50g per tyre) and should increase performance anyway due to better grip. This would then give me some spares to have incase I shred some tyres somehow. Also light innertubes would make another 30g difference each.
- Saddle: Still waiting for Planet-X to release a new version of their saddle. Currently riding an X-Uranus saddle which is hefty so should be easy to knock a hundred grams off and increase the comfort.
- Pedals: Running heavy spd's designed for mountain bikes at the moment. A set of light road peddles should improve peddling efficiency and cut another 100g off the bike.
- Wheels: A bit extreme and not really worth the money but if I suddenly become rich then a set of Neuvation R28 SLs will find their way onto my bike. These would save around 200g off my current setup but this would be about £2 per gram. Argh! |
So the question is how light could I go?
At the moment my bike weighs in at about 8.1kg down from 8.2kg. I think that by loosing the heavy tyres, saddle and pedals I could knock it down by another 300g making the bike weigh in at 7.8kg (17.2lb)
New wheels and this would be down to 7.6kg and perhaps new cranks could knock it down to 7.5kg (changing the rest of the groupset would save about 70g but would cost over £300 so not great). That would be 16.5lb which is unbelievably light for a bike this big and made out of Aluminium.
After this rant I think that I need to go out cycling. Its easier and cheaper for me to loose 0.5kg than for my bike to do so.
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- Cycling > Shaving Weight: Not my legs!
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