Which is more important, a light bike or light body?

[steve]

If you want to climb faster on your bike, you need to lose weight from somewhere. We set out to answer where you should lose this weight from. Should you cut back on the cake and lose a couple of kilos? Or will shedding the pounds from your bike be more beneficial? GCN's Daniel Lloyd and Greg Foot of Headsqueeze went up to the University of Bath to find out.


How To Climb Faster - Light Bike Or Light Body?



Which is best: lighter bike or leaner body? (With GCN) - Greg Answers

 

[17sjs]

Originally Posted by jodon .

Finding a light bicycle is easier than reduce the body weight.If you have budget,you could buy light material for your bike,for instance full carbon fiber,super light weight bicycle body,and light hub,spokes.http://www.flickr.com/photos/95211049@N04/

Oh good, more spam.

Yeah, I could spend a lot of money dropping a kilo or two from the weight of my bike, or I could work on the bodyweight and lose 20kgs. Pretty sure I know which will help me more at this point.

I imagine it's really only at a fairly competitive level that it becomes primarily about the bike weight, and even then you've got minimum weights usually..?

 

[alienator]

Boy, the yoleo spammers find their way into many threads.

 

[RidingSeed]

The body weight is more important imo. When losing body fat, you get mobility too I guess, and it makes it easier for you to handle your bike. Not only that, but it also gives you a feeling of being able to endure more on the way. But bike weight should be considered too, depending on which terrain you're riding.

 

[daveryanwyoming]

Originally Posted by 17sjs ....Yeah, I could spend a lot of money dropping a kilo or two from the weight of my bike, or I could work on the bodyweight and lose 20kgs. Pretty sure I know which will help me more at this point....

Yeah, if you're just talking about moving mass up a big hill then it's a wash where you reduce that mass. But when you consider how much more weight the average rider could drop from their body relative to their bike and if you consider cooling issues, flexibility and positioning issues and general health issues it makes a lot more sense for most of us to focus on our body weight and not so much on the bike weight.

But we all love light bikes....

-Dave

 

[alienator]

Yeah, if you're just talking about moving mass up a big hill then it's a wash where you reduce that mass. But when you consider how much more weight the average rider could drop from their body relative to their bike and if you consider cooling issues, flexibility and positioning issues and general health issues it makes a lot more sense for most of us to focus on our body weight and not so much on the bike weight. But we all love light bikes.... -Dave

+3. Doubly so when you consider how small the percentage of total bike/rider mass the bicycle is.

 

[Joshtylor]

Go for a light Body,you can manage any kind and designs of bike but if you get the light body you can handle it more easily.
________________________________________________
Josh Tylor
Malhotra Law Firm, PLLC
Fernwell Building 505 West Riverside Avenue, Ste. #500
Spokane, WA 99201
software patents

 

[joroshiba]

Depends on how light you are. I personally can lose maybe 2kg from my body.. maybe. At 52.5kg, my bike is about 7.5kg, Dumping the bottles, and losing a kilo from the bike makes a much larger difference. I wish they had shown that here, that when you are heavy 1kg makes a smaller percentage difference.

 

[ambal]

Originally Posted by daveryanwyoming .


Yeah, if you're just talking about moving mass up a big hill then it's a wash where you reduce that mass. But when you consider how much more weight the average rider could drop from their body relative to their bike and if you consider cooling issues, flexibility and positioning issues and general health issues it makes a lot more sense for most of us to focus on our body weight and not so much on the bike weight.

But we all love light bikes....

-Dave

Most of the guys I train with could lose a few KG's, but they all ride bikes that are good enough to race at the pro level. It's cheaper to go on a diet, i'm starting tomorrow!

 

[vspa]

body weight hands down, extra fat in your system makes the body work harder and less efficiently, there are more variables going on than merely gravity,

 

[An old Guy]

Fat is a good insulator. Losing weight helps keep the body temperature down allowing you to work longer. Lose too much fat and you have all sorts of physical problems.

At one time there was a bike builder who built 10-12 pound bikes for everyday use. He thought that people deserved lightweight bikes.

It is all a balance.

 

[Robert59]

90 percent of us can afford to lose some weight but buying a new bike is not in our future.

 

[jimmy8813]

I think is the light bike...

 

[vspa]

90 percent of us can afford to lose some weight but buying a new bike is not in our future.

but on the medical side few people can lose significant weight let alone avoid regaining it,

 

[daveryanwyoming]

Originally Posted by Riley1 .

Losing weight from both bike and body is important, but from a strictly performance point of view, you'll gain more advantage losing 4 lbs from your bike than 4 lbs from your body. Especially if you are losing weight from the wheels and drivetrain. Every single pedal stroke is a micro acceleration. ...

Every micro-acceleration of bike mass is accompanied by a micro-acceleration of overall body plus bike mass unless your bike rides itself.

Yes, moment of inertia is technically more substantial than linear mass during acclerations but do the math, from an energy expenditure or power standpoint it's so far down in the noise for real world rim weights as to be almost meaningless as a percentage of total inertial properties of the entire system and is one of the most over hyped things in cycling. Yeah MOI exists but it's not nearly as big a deal as cyclists love to claim.

Equivalent mass removed from the bike or the body or a bit from both doesn't change the physics of motion even considering dynamics and accelerations. Sure reducing MOI in rotational components helps in theory but in practice across reasonable commercial component weights is a very minor if not totally insignificant point. But still the vast majority of cyclists could easily afford to drop much more weight from their bodies than they could ever drop from their bikes and would reap health and fitness benefits in the process.

 

[bmoberg337]

Originally Posted by daveryanwyoming .


But still the vast majority of cyclists could easily afford to drop much more weight from their bodies than they could ever drop from their bikes and would reap health and fitness benefits in the process.

Can you provide research to back this claim?

 

[Felt_Rider]

Originally Posted by bmoberg337 .

Can you provide research to back this claim?

Why in the world would he need to provide any research to back up this claim?
Isn't already obvious or do you happen to have all elite level cyclists in your social circle with super low body fat levels.

In my metro area cycling club the majority could stand to lose 10 pounds or more of bodyweight including me. Even the one guy that I follow in my area racing Pro/1/2 is usually commenting on how he needs to drop more bodyweight to progress to Cat 1.

 

[vspa]

Can you provide research to back this claim?

true in my area, half of the serious young riders are essentially broke ! doing a diet would be cheaper than buying the latest Dura Ace,

 

[bmoberg337]

Originally Posted by Felt_Rider .

Why in the world would he need to provide any research to back up this claim?
Isn't already obvious or do you happen to have all elite level cyclists in your social circle with super low body fat levels.

In my metro area cycling club the majority could stand to lose 10 pounds or more of bodyweight including me. Even the one guy that I follow in my area racing Pro/1/2 is usually commenting on how he needs to drop more bodyweight to progress to Cat 1.

[SIZE= 11pt][COLOR= black]Your idea of what encompasses the majority is based off of your experience, which could be similar to or different than Dave's, and is certainly different than mine. Since this is a thread about body and equipment weight I would assume the projected audience is the competitive racer. Most of the people I know that race, including myself, cannot afford to lose much weight if any yet I consider them the majority. Saying that those individuals would reap health and fitness benefits by losing weight is a bold generalization.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[SIZE= 11pt][COLOR= black]The point is that the cycling community is very large and comprised of different groups, and “the majority” needs to be better defined here. In my mind your friends that need to lose 10lbs or more are not the target auidence. If we are referring to the cycling community as a whole then Dave's statement has some validity. [/COLOR][/SIZE]

 

[Felt_Rider]

Originally Posted by bmoberg337 .

[SIZE= 11pt][COLOR= black]Your idea of what encompasses the majority is based off of your experience, which could be similar to or different than Dave's, and is certainly different than mine. Since this is a thread about body and equipment weight I would assume the projected audience is the competitive racer. Most of the people I know that race, including myself, cannot afford to lose much weight if any yet I consider them the majority. Saying that those individuals would reap health and fitness benefits by losing weight is a bold generalization.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[SIZE= 11pt][COLOR= black]The point is that the cycling community is very large and comprised of different groups, and “the majority” needs to be better defined here. In my mind your friends that need to lose 10lbs or more are not the target auidence. If we are referring to the cycling community as a whole then Dave's statement has some validity. [/COLOR][/SIZE]

There is always some issues posting on a forum for the "target audience" and even if one says those who race it would then come to another filtration of what category of racer are you talking about? The local guy that I mentioned in my post racing Pro/1/2 has stated on an open forum that in order for him to go to the next Cat 1 or higher that he will have to find a way to lose weight. I am assuming that he has no more weight to give off his bike. He races for Team Litespeed and he therefore uses the bike that they give him, which is their lightest bike with all the lightest components the sponsor is willing to put on the team bikes. There is another member here that races Pro/1/2 on this forum that has also mentioned losing body weight and has not mentioned losing weight off his bike.

I may not have the closest ties to competitive cyclist on this forum, but most that I know have some of the lightest high end bikes out there. As for me I ride a LOOK 585 that weighs a little over14 pounds with regular wheels and just under 15 pounds with the Powertap wheel. Where else could I lose weight off that bike and to what gain? I could maybe drop one more pound off the bike at a significant cost.