When I had a carbon fibre frame, I didn't really care about how much it weighed. The Tarmac was 19.5lbs when it was stock, which made it a complete pig in the world of carbon bikes. I didn't really care. The King/IRD wheels I had built up for it knocked the weight down to 18.5lbs, but I enjoyed how quickly they spun up much more than I cared about how much lighter my bike was.
Isaac is a total weight weenie. The bike he's going to be building this spring has the goal of being a 14lb bike, and that shouldn't be hard knowing the frame he'll be using. The funny part is that Isaac is 50lbs heavier than I am. But his constantly talking about light weight parts is infectious, and having access to the parts at prices that most people do not makes it very appealing to want to buy light weight parts.
At the end of its time with me, I wanted the Tarmac to be 17lbs or under. Not a disgustingly light bike, but a light enough bike. Most of the Ultegra level carbon bikes weigh around that, so I thought it was a good target to reach for. So I bought the Force group in an attempt to get the bike down to 17 even. It ended up being 17lbs 8oz (17.5lbs) when it was all put together. It was close, and I had a few ideas to get it under 17, but the whole front derailleur thing happened, and now the Tarmac is gone.
The Allez frame is BB30, uses the same fork as the SL4 Tarmac Pro (tappered carbon fork with carbon steerer) and is very light for an aluminum frame. When I bought it I decided it would be a statement; metal bikes are just as awesome. Most people think that just because they have a carbon bike it's lighter, stiffer and faster than a metal bike. Some are, there's no denying that, but there are plenty of awesome alloy bikes that are just as fast.
This year, Specialized offers the same frame I have, but in black, with a Rival group, FSA BB30 crank (I think it's carbon) and a pretty nice set of DTSwiss wheels for the same price as they sell the entry level Tarmac and Roubaix bikes equipped with Apex or Tiagra. Guess which bike is better. Yeah. I wanted to take the Allez Evo (the bike mentioned above) a step further. I want it to be as light as the Pro level Tarmac but for Ultegra money. So the goal is 16lbs even for retail of less than the $3900 the Ultegra equipped carbon bikes costs.
At present, My bike weighs 17lbs 14oz. 2oz shy of 18lbs, but only 6oz heavier than the Tarmac was with the Force group. Pretty impressive considering the Tarmac was weighed with the King/IRD wheels and the Allez rolls on 1850g PowerTap fatties. The initial goal is to lose the 14oz (397g) and get down to 17lbs. I know I can easily knock a pound off the bike by building a set of Stan's 340 rims with King R45 hubs and Sapim CX-Ray spokes and alloy nerps. The other 7/8th of a pound I'm going to have to get creative.
Step one was free. I cut about two inches of dead weight off my already disgustingly light alloy seatpost. I have a Woodman SL that claimed to weigh 95g (you read that correctly) in a 200mm length. I bought the 300 and it weighed 120g. I marked the seatpost where I have it set in the frame, measured the minimum insertion amount at 85mm and measured from the mark I made down and made another mark. One minute with a saw and I dropped 23g. 97g seatpost... 103g lighter than the carbon post I had in the Tarmac.
Skewers are dead weight. They're ugly too. There are a whole bunch of bolt on skewers for the anorexic bike crowd. 60g used to be a light set, but mid 40's seems to be where most light weight skewers live today. I found a set that weighs 27g. For both. They bolt on with a 4mm allen, and since I always ride with a tool anyway, I don't feel like I'd be screwed if I got a flat, or want to put it on my roof rack. At current, I have a steel skewer in the back and the front is the front alloy QR that came with my PowerTap wheels. I will weigh them at another time, but I wouldn't be surprised if the rear skewer was 80-100g by itself, so i expect the weight savings to be significant.
The next thing will be my stem. I currently have a 180g Specialized 90mm stem from Isaac's old carbon StumpJumper. Ritchey just released their claimed 103g C260 stems and I'm thinking a white one would look really nice on my bike. Bikerumor just did a write up of the carbon wrapped alloy stem in a 90mm that weighed 110g. The carbon wrap adds weight, so I know it'll be lighter than that, so that's another 70ish grams down.
23 + 70 = 93g. I have to wait and see on the skewers, but I'm going to conservatively say 50g for them, so we're around 140g down and 260g to go.
Saddle. as I've stated many times before, I love me some Specialized saddles. The Romin is without question my favourite and it is on two of the three bikes I own. Specialized make an S-Works version of the Toupé that weighs in at a claimed 115g for a 143mm model. I was never very comfortable on the Toupé I had, and even though it's been redesigned, I want to stick with the Romin. The S-Works Toupé is a full carbon shell with carbon rails and padding on the top for "comfort" (see here). The current Romins I have are the Cr-Mo versions and weigh in at a claiimed 230g for the 143mm version. While they don't make an S-Works, they do make a Pro, which has carbon rails and weighs a claimed 160g in my size. A savings of 70g. 190g to go.
From here it gets tricky. I could just punch this thing out and get a carbon Zipp SL2 bar that weighs less than 160g if I wanted to spend the money. My FSA alloy bar is a portly 285g, so that's a big difference. But I don't want to spend that kind of money yet. Here's what I'm thinking...
Bottle cages. I use regular-ass alloy cages because they last just as long as plastic, come in just as many colours and hold water just the same, if not better. They're half the price too, which is awesome. They weigh about 50g (i'll get an exact weight later) compared to the 36g of the plastic ones. I'm going carbon for 23g. Make that two for 46g and a 54g savings.
Hardware is one of those things that weight obsessed crazies think about. I was on a forum the other day where a guy seriously asked if it was okay to run 3 of the 6 bolts required for his rotor on his mt. bike, just to give you an idea. I care about my safety, so i wont be doing anything like that, but I will swap out things here and there if it will save weight. I already got a gift from Isaac of 4 alloy water bottle cage bolts. OEMs weighed 4g each, these weigh 2g each. Yeah, i'll get that serious if I have to.
The only other things I can think of at the moment are tires/tubes and brakes. I could drop almost half the weight of my brakes if I switched to a pricey set of TRPs or Ciamillo. The Ciamillo brakes would be a pain to set up and maintain and cost a lot for what they are, but are super light. The TRP brakes would be only a touch heavier, but be easier to set up and maintain. Still pricey. I'm putting brakes in the carbon bar/top of the line road grouppo box... too much money.
Tubes and tires are easier. my tires currently weigh in the 230g range and my tubes are about 110g each. I could get 2 light weight tubes at around 65g each and lose 90g and put me at 50g to go. I'm already getting a set of Vredestein Fortezza SuperLite. It's just a light weight, grippier but faster wearing, no rain version of the Tricomps I always rave about. They're claimed 185 each which saves about 45g a tire. Total wheel savings of 180g of rotating weight.
So there we are, goal reached on paper. The stem, tires, skewers and cut seatpost were all planned into the "purchase price" of the Allez before I even bought the frame. The bottle cages didn't come into play until one of my alloy ones broke, and I'm going to need 2 for the warmer weather this spring and summer, and I wanted them to match. Anna recently got the carbon cages for her Amira (16lbs 4oz for a 48cm lady Tarmac with Dura-Ace... her bike is the first I plan on embarrassing at the scales) and when you see the one's I ordered, in conjunction with knowing how vain I am about how my bikes look, you'll understand.
I had no plans for a new saddle at all until Isaac installed the Romin Pro on my Woodman post while I was putting the Allez together and the post and saddle weight was less than that of my current Romin saddle. Fuck that guy.
This spring and summer should be interesting. I'll take pictures of the new stuff as I get it and post weights with it so you can follow and shake your head at me. I'm going to save as much as I can from working at the shop this year and put it towards building a set of wheels next year and get the weight down to 16lbs even, 17 with the PowerTap wheels for "training." Cuase, you know, I race all the time and need to train.
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