Weight...wait...

The Tank™'s diet continues, with another saddle change. I picked up a secondhand Selle Italia Kevlar Gel Flow saddle on Ebay for the princely sum of £40.41. It's quite an old one but is in fair condition and, crucially for my purposes, tips the scales at just 180g. That's pretty light for any saddle, but especially for an MTB-specific one.

Whatever, that's a further 160g shaved off the bike as a whole, bringing the whole thing down to 13.05kg. Not bad considered it started at 14.5...

There is still more to do, but am starting to get to the point where big differences will be hard to make. Still, every little helps, right?

Helpfully/unhelpfully

As you'll know from recent posts, I'm trying to shave some flab off The Tank™. The next obvious candidate for an easy weight loss is the seatpost, currently the OEM alloy post from the mid-90s. With a good carbon post, I could probably save at least 150g, if not more. And this is where it turns into an ISIHAC parlour-game.

Helpfully the current seatpost still bears an original sticker, proclaiming it to be 26.4mm in diameter.

Unhelpfully part of the sticker is missing, and I interpreted what was left as 25.4mm.

Helpfully this used to be quite a common size for Cannondale bikes, so they, ENVE, Zipp, FSA and a very few others make a carbon post this size.

Unhelpfully they are ruinously expensive.

Helpfully there are some on Ebay.

Unhelpfully these are still quite expensive, or don't have the right offset, or are overseas and ruled out by extortionate postage charges.

Helpfully, I found what looked a like possible candidate in the shape of an old Easton EC70.

Unhelpfully they didn't list the diameter in the description, only the length and offset.

Helpfully they did include this picture, which suggested the post was 25mm or a whisker over:

I should not have relied on this...

Unhelpfully I relied on this, and took a punt.

Helpfully the post arrived quickly, beautifully packaged and in great used condition.

Unhelpfully there was no way in a million years it would fit The Tank™ - my middle-Lidl digital vernier caliper suggested it was actually more like 27.2 mm across. And that the partially stickered OEM post is actually 26.4mm. Bugger.

In a fit of pique, I rummaged around in a toolbox, found a hacksaw and lopped about two inches off the old alloy post. The Kitchen Scales of Inaccuracy™ suggest this realised a weight saving of 27g, for free. And I now have a 27.2mm carbon seatpost to sell on Ebay. The moral of the story? Don't be fooled by photographs, and get yourself a caliper. And/or a hacksaw.

The Tank™ is on a diet

As mentioned last time, I'm trying to breathe a bit of life into The Tank™, a 30yr-old steel mountain bike that has been through the mill but is seemingly indestructible.

Part of that resuscitation involves putting the whole thing on a diet, and I was quite pleased to have shaved nearly half a kilogram off last time. But why stop there? As it happens, the old girl needed new tyres, the old pair having clocked very nearly 4,000 puncture-free miles.

So my starting point was a 26 x 1.9" Schwalbe Land Cruiser on the front and a 26 x 2.0" Land Cruiser Plus on the rear. Don't ask why they were different widths - that's what happens when a bike shop only has certain tyres in stock. Anyway, they came off and a last-gen pair of new Land Cruisers went on, but narrower: 26 x 1.75". And I was amazed at the weight saving. My admittedly increasingly inaccurate luggage scale reckoned the old front tyre was 700g but its replacement was 350g. And an even bigger reduction came from changing the rear.

The upshot of all this is that The Tank™ now tips the scales at something like 13.25kg, more than a kilo lighter than it was this time last month. And because the tyres were last-gen, i.e. last year's model, they were only £11 each. So my secondary aim of rejuvenating the old girl on the cheap holds up too.

Wondering what I can do next? The seatpost is an obvious candidate but being an old-school MTB it's a funny size: 25.4mm. Don't find too many carbon posts that size. I might have to result to more rudimentary changes, as in pulling the post out and seeing if there's scope for cutting it down a bit. Now, where's my hacksaw...?

Life in the old dog yet?

You may have seen me refer to The Tank™ on here before. Well, here it is:

The only thing older and more clapped out than this bike is its rider.

For clarity, this is a Saracen Rufftrax that I bought new from Halfords in Folkestone, Kent, all the way back in 1995, for the princely sum (then) of £199.99 - as you can see, it is not all original (that's a padded but very comfortable Wittkop saddle from middle-Lidl, of all places, and Giant bar-ends, for starters) but is, for the most part, the same bike I did the 1996 London to Brighton bike ride on, incredibly.

It was starting to feel very tired though. Last October, I had to bite the bullet and find some new shifters, because I just couldn't change gear any more. I managed to find an as-new compatible Shimano set, still boxed, from an Ebayer in the US who bought them for his kids' MTBs years ago, never used them and then rediscovered them at the back of his garage. Result. They went on and suddenly I could change gear again. I put a new rear mech on at the same time.

I also upgraded the brakes, which felt like a more significant change because it meant a move away from period correctness - I swapped out the old cantilever brakes and fitted V brakes instead. I can stop a bit better now (though the gain is marginal).

I've been using The Tank™ all through the winter for commuting, which is why it's in the state it was at the weekend, propped up against the table tennis table in the back garden. But having spent time and money keeping it usable, money that could easily have bought something half-decent (and modern) on the used market, I suddenly realised that I have committed to keeping the old beast on the road. And that, having made concessions to modernisation with the change of brakes, the shackles were off in terms of other modifications.

Let's be clear, although it's technically a mountain bike, most of the time it's on the road, just in bad weather. So the fact that it weighs a tonne is an issue. Okay, not a tonne ... but I picked it up with a fairly accurate luggage scale on Saturday and it clocked 14.5kg. That's a lot, and needs to change. However, I also don't want to spend a lot on the bike. It doesn't owe me anything, but I have other bikes that I'd rather spend money improving. So, my goal is to see if there's life in the old bike yet, but do so without spending too much... and this is how I started at the weekend:

⮜	OFF:	Wittkop Medicus MTB saddle	-	430g
⮞	ON:	Giant Performance Road saddle	No cost (had it spare in the garage)	340g
⮜	OFF:	Saracen OEM alloy handlebar	-	416g
⮞	ON:	USE Atom carbon handlebar	£44.49 on Ebay	135g
⮜	OFF:	Giant Contact SL bar-ends	-	158g
⮞	ON:	Houson R15 bar-ends	No cost (freebie)	64g
⮜	OFF:	A leftover bolt from the old cantilever brakes	-	5g
Total weight saving:				460g

In other words, I battered the weight-saving rule of 1g/£, by a factor of 10! Hanging it back on the luggage scale returned a figure of 14.1kg though, so there's still work to do...

As luck would have it, The Tank™ needs new tyres. Because it is mostly used on the road, for commuting in inclement weather, I plan to downsize from 26 x 2.00 to 26 x 1.75. I'll be sticking with Schwalbe Land Cruiser Plus though, as they've served me brilliantly. The tyres have been ordered, I'll post here again when they've arrived and I've put them on. Maybe there'll be an "after" photo too, to go with the "before" above. I also plan to save a few cheap grammes with a new bottle cage. Whoop-de-doo, right?

Like a bear ...

... I'm putting on weight for the winter ...

... because I had a puncture cycling home from work last week, and I'm sick of them. So, although the foldable Continental Gatorskins my trusty flat-bar was shod with looked like they had a bit of life left in them (Strava tells me they'd done over 2,800 miles, mind), off they came, and on (with a hell of a struggle, a broken tyre lever and a broken Tyre Glider) went a pair of wired Schwalbe Marathon Plus.

Bottom line, I have a heavier but sturdier pair of tyres on now, roughly 50g heavier per wheel. They are grippy though, and feel sturdy. Plus they have the "Smartguard" reflective band on the tyre wall which, on my winter commuter, can only be a good thing.

The eagle-eyed amongst you (you? No-one reads this...) will have spotted the green dustcaps in the picture above. For yes, such was my ire at last week's puncture, I also fitted some Slime road inner tubes, These are much heavier than the Schwalbe Extra Light they replaced, adding about 110g per wheel. On the plus side, they felt quite comfy on this morning's commute which was a relief, as I had worried they'd be less pliant.

So after all those years of shaving every possible gram off the trusty flat-bar, I have just willingly added about 320g - more than seven KitKats! Impact? Well, I felt slower this morning, and it felt like harder work too. However, Strava suggests it has had no great impact on my average speed or top speed, so maybe it was just one of those mornings when it feels like hard work. Not getting any younger, slimmer or fitter, after all...

P.S. I tweeted (or Xed, or whatever) Tyre Glider about the breakage and they sent me a replacement, FOC, in the post. Good customer service, I would say.

The weigh-in

I still don't have a fancy bike scale like the one pictured left. Until now, every time I wanted to weigh my bike or any large component all I could do was stand on my bathroom scale with and without the bike, and compare the difference. Not the most accurate method, I'm sure you'll agree. But the fancy bike scale currently costs in excess of £77 over at Jeff Bezos's place ... so what's a cyclist to do?

Well, what this cyclist has done is buy a hand-held luggage scale, that's what. Specifically, one with a strap rather than a hook, so I can easily hang a bike frame from it. And you know what, it works pretty well; a bit of experimentation is required to find the bike's centre of gravity, to get a nice, reproducible weight reading, but once you've done that, weighing a bike with a hand-held luggage scale is a doddle.

What's more, the scale I found, also at Amazon, costs £7. Yep, one eleventh of the Park Tools super scale. Yes, PT is undoubtedly superior ... but eleven times as good? I doubt it.

Anyway, you know what's coming next, don't you? The big weigh-in! First up, it's the Blue Steed, Old Faithful, the flat-bar road bike I did LEJOG on. According to my luggage scale, it is currently running (no bags, no lights, no bottle) at ... drumroll please...

Not bad for a bike that rolled out of the factory at 9.8 KG, OEM.

Next up, the Project Bike, the bargain bike challenge that is very nearly finished (photos and final spec to follow soon). This currently tips the (luggage) scale at a slightly disappointing:

I might be able to shave a bit more off that, but I should probably concentrate on my belly first as the best place to lose a few grammes.

And finally, for a laugh, The Tank™, a steel-framed mountain bike that is nearly 30 years old yet remains indestructable. Unsurprisingly, it is the fat boy of my bike rack:

So, the moral of this story seems to be, you can weigh your bikes quickly easily, without jumping on and off bathroom scales, and without blowing nearly 80 quid. And as a bonus you can also weigh your hand luggage before your next flight too...

P.S. Feel free to tell me how much lighter your bikes are than mine in the comments. I promise to be grudgingly envious :)

Saddles... before and after

As part of the continued bargain bike challenge, I picked up a new saddle on ebay for a third of RRP. So here's a gratuitous before and after.

Before: Giant Performance Road saddle (OEM)

After: Selle Italia SLR Kit Carbonio Flow saddle with carbon rails

As you can see, according to the Kitchen Scales of Inaccuracy^TM, swapping out my saddle has saved me 209g - a weight reduction equal to very nearly five KitKats. And okay, I've yet to complete a long ride on the new saddle, but a very unscientific test (poking with my thumbs) suggests it is better padded than the saddle I did LEJOG on, so fingers crossed.

Bargain bike challenge update

So far, I've replaced both wheels, swapped out the QR swekers for some bargain super-light confections, switched the bottle holder for the very light one on my old bike, and removed extraneous items (notably the bracket that held an ineffective pump). Oh, and I've upgraded the brakes, fitting a pair of Ultegra calipers I had spare, and put a new tyre on the back wheel. The bike, which weighed 9.6kg when I got it, now tips the scales at approximately... (drum roll...)

Total expense so far, if you ignore regular maintenance items like tyres and tubes, is:

• The bike (secondhand): £200
• Wheelset (secondhand): £100
• New QR skewers: £18.99
• Total: £318.99

Everything else I either had already or has been swapped for kit on my old road bike, or is an expense that I would have incurred anyway if I'd bought a new bike as originally planned, like an aero Wahoo mount and Bike Register fees. Basically, I'm only counting costs that are unique to my purchase of the project bike, and that wouldn't have been otherwise incurred.

Anyway, the next job will be switch saddles, putting my superlight sliver of carbon on the proect bike. But that's a job for another day.

A mixed bag

Why yes, I have finally found a use for the spare set of Shimana Ultegra R8000 brake calipers I had knocking about...

And yes, I have fitted some Lifeline Professional carbon and titanium (and very aesthetically pleasing) QR skewers...

But also, yes, the Lifeline budget chain whip I tried to remove a cassette with did break on first use...

All of which goes to show, there are some things you can economise on and others (like those that need to handle in excess of 40Nm of force) that really reinforce the maxim, "buy cheap, buy twice." Or, in this case, send back to Wiggle in a bad mood.

P.S. For the weight-weenies amongst you:

• The front Ultegra caliper with stock pads weighed 181g, compared to 194g from the caliper it was replacing. However, I had to use the extra-long pivot nut from the old caliper because of the depth of my front fork, bringing the weight as fitted back to to 187g.
• The rear Ultegra caliper with stock pads weighed 180g, compared to 190g from the caliper it was replacing. All in all, I realised a 17g weight saving by replacing both calipers. More importantly though, I now stop much better.
• The combined weight of the Lifeline Professional carbon and titanium skewers is 45g. Yep, for the pair. This represents a saving of approximately 75g over the original pair, which is astonishing value given that these are currently reduced to just £18.99 (Wiggle) - be quick!

Worth the weight?

I wrote last time about changing the project bike's wheelset, specifically swapping out the stock 2016 Giant SR-2 alloy clinchers with a pair of Mavic Aksium Elite hoops that I'd sourced secondhand.

Well, I haven't done the back wheel yet, as I'm waiting for a new lockring tool to be delivered, but the results are in for the front wheel. And they are, truth be told, a little underwhelming.

The weight of the front Aksium Elite, bare except for rim-tape and skewer, registered as 882g on the Kitchen Scales of Inaccuracy^TM. The Giant SR-2 front wheel, in the same bare state, clocked in at 910g. So a weight saving, sure ... but 28g isn't much. I must admit to feeling a little disappointed. Part of the reason for this is that Giant make it very hard to find weight information for anything they sell, whether that's a stem, a wheelset or a whole bike, to the extent that you're reliant on reviews to find any weight data. Unsurprisingly, I hadn't been able to find any reviews of a six year old wheelset, just this comment on Reddit that gave the weight of the front wheel as 930g.

Anyway, it's not all bad news. Since I had the wheel off and the scales out, I weighed both skewers separately too. The Mavic skewer showed as 60g, the Giant at 56g. So the Giant skewer went on with the Mavic wheel. Another 4g saved.

I also took the opportunity to fit a light weight inner tube whilst I was at it, specifically a Schwalbe Extra Light. My size of choice is the 18c-25c with 50mm Presta valve, so I can tell you that size weighs in at 76g. As for the Vavert that came out of the tyre, well, it's quite hard to fit a deflated, user tube on some kitchen scales ... the only reading I managed to get was 125g. I'm not convinced that's right but, if it was, I made more of a weight saving changing an inner tube than I did replacing a wheel...

Oh, and since prospective Giant owners have to rely on bloggers and reviewers for weight data, let me reiterate the following:

A 2016 Giant SR-2 front wheel, bare except from rim-tape and skewer, weighs 910g.

The skewer that comes with a 2016 Giant SR-2 front wheel weighs 56g.

It's unlikely, but I hope that helps someone.

Wheel-y exciting

So, I wrote last time that the stock Giant SR-2 wheels on the project bike are fine and run true but seem heavy - you can certainly feel them when you try to spin up to speed quickly (like cresting a hill, for example).

Decent, light, robust wheels are expensive though, and I'm trying to build something half decent on a budget. So what to do?

What to do is act fast when you see something half-decent being sold secondhand, that's what.

That said, time will tell whether I've been wise, lucky or foolish but, for now, let me just report that I saw a Mavic Aksium Elite wheelset going secondhand, lightly used and in good condition, for £100. And I jumped in.

For comparison, the SR-2 wheelset run out at 2,130g for the pair, bare apart from rim-tape. The claimed weight for the Aksium Elite is 1,735g. So not super light but, in theory, offering very nearly a 400g weight reduction that will hopefully translate to better acceleration. And who knows, I might even save a gram or two on the skewers :)

I haven't fitted them yet though, so we'll see. I'm waiting on a delivery of a new tyre for the back wheel because, as I've mentioned before, the existing tyre has been flattened, presumably by lots of turbo trainer mileage. All I can tell you for now is that they have very cool bladed spokes. Other than that, watch this space to see how the new wheels (and tyre) go, and if I can feel the weight difference afterwards.

As a footnote, I should add that Mavic don't make the Aksium Elite any more. I'm hoping the fact that it had such a short shelf-life is all to do with the trend towards wheels for disc brakes, and the fact that the clincher market could no longer support both the Aksium and Aksium Elite, and nothing to do with some design flaw or inherent crappiness. I guess we'll find out...

Swings and roundabouts

What you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts.
- Gertrude Lawrence, "A Star Danced"

I fitted a new seatpost and seatpost clamp last week. As well as looking frankly excellent, they gave me a weight saving of about 85g. Not much, you might say, but then the old seatpost was carbon, so I wasn't expecting too much ... although 85g is nearly two KitKats, so not too shabby.

However, last week I also replaced my quite worn and suddenly very puncture-prone Fusion 5 Kevlar Pro Tech tyres with a pair of folding Continental Gatorskins... and they added 70g.

Gah...

Chipping away

Not done one of these for a while...

Just got to reduce the weight of the fat knacker in the saddle now...

Money well spent ... and not so well spent

My latest weight reduction/upgrade was to replace the OEM bar-ends on my bike with some Extralite UltraEnds. Extralite have replaced these with the CyberEnds now, but I got the UltraEnds on eBay from a bloke in Italy for a bargain price, because one bolt was missing. Thanks to Extralite's excellent spares policy, I was able to source an original bolt (also from Italy). All told, I spent about £40 buying and completing these - not bad considering they would have been (a slightly mad) €99 new, and even better when you consider the g/£ weight saved to cost ratio, as evidenced by the Scales Of Inaccuracy™, look:

  

So, money well spent.

Less well spent was the £17 I parted with to buy an IceToolz Ocarina torque wrench. I'm usually a bit sceptical about such bargains, on the basis that they're probably cheap for a reason, but I was swayed by this complimentary review from the usually reliable BikeRadar. What arrived, again from an eBay seller, certainly looked the part, and I was glad to finally have the chance to use it. Turns out that gladness was short-lived. Yes, the Ocarina correctly tightened the bolt on the right bar-end to a torque of 5Nm. Fixing the left bar-end in place, the Ocarina got to about 4Nm and then something inside let go, so that the shaft now turns freely from side to side in the handle ... rendering it completely useless.

So is a £17 torque wrench that covers a range of 1-10 Nm too good to be true? Seems that way. Whilst there are certainly some areas of bike upgrade and maintenance where economies can be sensibly made, it turns out that torque wrench purchase is probably not one of them. Buy cheap, buy twice...

"He's a boss, he's a VIP, he's a championship..."

I have a new top cap. Here it is on the the slightly dusty Scales Of Inaccuracy™, look:

The claimed weight, bolt included, is 2.9g - as you see, my kitchen scales aren't refined enough to prove or disprove this. Certainly doesn't seem to be overweight, at least.

This is an Extralite HyperCap - not cheap (no Extralite gear is, sadly), but I got this at a factory-special reduction because of "very small cosmetic imperfections". Works for me, because the one that was delivered (all the way from Italy) looks absolutely flawless.

So is it worth it? The cost and European postage? Well, it replaces a stem/bolt combo that weighed 17g, so I only strayed slightly the wrong side of the "£1 per 1g" cost/weight trade-off. Plus, I mean, come on, look at that hollow bolt... (don't look too closely at the design, I had no choice in that, it's the only one they do...)

So, swapping out a top cap to save 14g at a cost of €19... the transition is complete. I am officially a bike nerd.

P.S. The title of this post is a punning reference for readers of a certain age... because "top cap" sounds very much like this...

Stem subject

Before...

...and after...

I had got to the stage where every gram of weight saving was costing me £1, so to save 37g with this Specialized stem, bought secondhand for £15, seems to be good value.

A lot of Kit-Kats

Since I started modding the trusty old bike, I've reduced its weight by more than 30 Kit-Kats...

Saddled

Yes, that's a picture of my nice, new saddle, the Prime Primavera, on The Scales Of Inaccuracy™ (formerly The Scales Of Truth, but GCN called dibs on that), registering a scarcely credible 137-138g. For comparison, the saddle it's replacing tips those same scales at 345g. How is this kind of weight-saving possible, you might ask, and the answer is ... carbon. Lots of carbon. The body of the saddle is carbon. The rails are carbon. Everything that can be carbon, is, basically.

Also pictured, the little packet of Haribo those nice folks at Wiggle sent with the saddle. No, they didn't pay me to say that (though I'm open to offers, Wiggle et al.), they just seem nice. Plus they had a 43% reduction on this, bringing a saddle that weighs the same as three and a quarter KitKats into the realms of affordability. Still not cheap, but it's so light it's hardly there, for goodness sake...

Inevitable flip side? It appears to have less padding than the stock Giant saddle it's replacing, so it remains to be seen how comfy I find it on a long ride. As soon as I actually get my lazy, locked-down arse into gear and have a long ride, I'll report back here and let you know.

Dieting is hard

It's getting harder and harder to shed the pounds. This was a hard-won tenth of a kilogram...

Two changes - first, I finally got around to fitting the new (to me, it's secondhand) carbon handlebar, a Truvativ Noir T40, which, as we have previously established, is so light it would blow away in a stiff breeze. However, it turns out that the original bar was pretty light too, for aluminium, and this only yielded an 83g saving, if the Kitchen Scales of Truth™ are to be believed. Never mind. Also pictured is the newly fitted replacement aero bracket for my GPS, which quickly failed in the same way as the original. Never mind.

The rest of the tiny weight saving came by putting on these excellent Shimano PD-R8000 Ultegra SPD-SL carbon pedals. I didn't buy them to save weight, I got them to enter the world of cleats and clipping in... but even so, I got a 14g weight saving across the pair. Yes, I weighed pedals to record a 14g weight reduction. You ought to feel sorry for me really.

Where else can I shave some weight off? Well, I could get a carbon stem, but that's going to be a lot of money for a tiny saving. A better bet might be to treat myself to a new saddle, maybe with carbon rails. Other than that, I'd just have to buy a new bike...

Bar none

My new handlebar arrived today. As you can see from the kitchen scales of truth, it's quite a bit more than the claimed weight of 110g (nearly 13% more, maths fans)...

...but it's still so light it feels like it would blow away in a stiff breeze.