How To Make A Mountain Bike Lighter

Having a light mountain bike can improve your riding by making it easier and faster. It can also help you take your riding to the next level. The quest to make your mountain bike lighter can be a frustrating and costly experience. In this article we will discuss all aspects of bike weight and how you can get the most improvement for the least amount of money.

Rider Weight

This is the first place most people can start. If you have a few extra pounds to lose it will pretty much have the same effect as shaving pounds off your bike. Losing weight is great because not only is it free, you will also save money because you won't have to buy as much food/snacks. Take Bob for example: he has 30 extra pounds he wants to lose and his bike weighs 30 pounds. If Bob can lose all 30 pounds it will be like he doesn't even have a bike! If you have the extra pounds to lose, do it before spending money to make your bike lighter. Having a heavier bike will help you lose more weight anyway.

Easy (and usually cheap) upgrades

After losing those extra pounds the cheapest components to change are the saddle, seat post, handlebars, and stem. Since these components do not have moving parts they will have a lower cost than some of the other parts of the bike. Be advised that even though these are the cheapest parts to upgrade you will still pay quite a bit for materials such as titanium and carbon fiber which are very light but expensive to manufacture.

Saddles

Saddles have rails made from the following materials listed in order from heaviest to lightest (cheapest to most expensive):

• Chromoly/Steel
• Chromoly/Titanium Composite
• Titanium
• Carbon Fiber

Seat Posts

Seat posts can be made of the following materials listed from heaviest to lightest (cheapest to most expensive):

• Chromoly/Steel
• Aluminum
• Carbon Fiber Tube with Aluminum head

Depending on the size of the seat post and where you need it adjusted, you may be able to cut off part of the tube to save more weight. Be aware that you will still need a good amount of tube inside the frame at all times in order to have your weight distributed to the bike frame properly. If you cut it too short it can be very unsafe. Always err on the side of caution and don't cut it too short or you may end up buying a new post when you realize it's now too short.

Handlebars and Stems

Stems are typically made of aluminum only but some have hardware made from titanium to make them lighter. Handlebars are made from aluminum or carbon fiber. Handlebars, like seat posts, can be cut to save extra weight if you really want to. Be sure to measure the same distance on each side of the bar and don't cut off too much or your bike may become too hard to control or not have enough room to mount your brakes/shifters/bike computer.

Front Fork/Shocks

The lightest and cheapest thing to do would be to ride without a suspension fork and instead ride with a rigid aluminum fork but suspension is a luxury most mountain riders, myself included, cannot do without. There are a myriad of shocks that are built for different purposes and materials. The very cheapest shocks usually have steel uppsers/stanchions, steerer tube, and/or lowers which are very heavy. As you get into more expensive and higher-end shocks you will see magnesium lowers and aluminum uppers/stanchions and steerer tube. These metals are lighter which results in a lighter shock overall. Getting a new shock can be quite expensive but it can reduce the weight of your bike quite a bit. To give you an idea of how much weight you can lose by changing your shock, some lower end shocks weight as much as 5 lbs. whereas high-end shocks can weigh as little as 2.5 lbs.

Other Components

Your braking system and drivetrain system can be made lighter by purchasing high-end components. Like most of the other parts on the bike, the higher-end components will be made out of lighter, exotic materials such as titanium and carbon fiber. These parts are very expensive to swap out all at once because they have lots of moving parts and are more expensive to manufacture than something like a seat post which is mainly a metal tube. Also, you will typically not gain a very large weight advantage by changing individual parts but by changing all these components it can make a bigger difference and lower the weight of your bike considerably.

Frame

The frame is the largest part of a bike and is usually the heaviest single part of a bike. There are many frame materials being used to build frames currently. You will most commonly see frames made from aluminum which is light, strong and stiff. There are different grades of aluminum, the highest grade aluminum is significantly lighter than the lower grades and is even stronger than lower grade aluminum. There are also materials such as scandium, magnesium, kinesium, and titanium that are usually mixed with aluminum to produce a lighter or stronger metal and these will typically cost more than a plain aluminum frame. Carbon fiber frames are the lightest and most costly frames.

A note about Carbon Fiber

Carbon Fiber is a material that requires some special care. When tightening the seat clamp around a carbon fiber seat post you cannot tighten it too much or the carbon fiber will shatter or weaken which ruins it. If you tighten your brakes or shifters too much on your carbon fiber handlebars the same thing can happen. It is a good idea to check the surfaces of anything that will be mounted on or clamped around carbon fiber. Make sure there are no burrs and make sure that mounting surface is even so that pressure can be distributed equally across the mounting area. You can remove burrs and make mounting surfaces smooth by using emery board or emery paper to sand down the imperfections. Clamp or mount things as loose as you can get away with without being unsafe. It is a good idea to inspect your carbon frame or components regularly to look for dents or deep scratches that can cause weak areas on the bike. If something breaks it's most likely going to happen while riding in extreme conditions where crashing is going to hurt worse so it's important to inspect your bike first.

Conclusion

If you are mainly doing recreational riding it can be nice to have a light bike as it will allow you to ride faster and better. If you are racing then having a lighter bike can mean the difference between winning and losing a race. Most riders would agree that bike weight matters mostly for racing and typically only a racer's budget can afford the expensive carbon fiber parts needed to have the lightest bike on the mountain. Many recreational riders will still catch the 'light mountain bike bug' and fork out hundreds of dollars to have a mountain bike lighter than all of their friends but it should be known that having a lighter bike does not make you a better rider than the next guy or allow you to have more fun than him either. My overall recommendation to recreational riders is to worry more about having fun on the trail than about having a lighter bike than everyone else.