Old bikes were lighter?

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Gravity Aided

Legendary Member
Location
Land of Lincoln
Being heavier myself, up in that same range as @HMS_Dave , I still find that a lighter bicycle works better for me. Before I worry too much about weight, I have to think that most of my bicycles, being touring bicycles, are going to have a few pounds added before I go any great distance.
 

gbb

Legendary Member
Location
Peterborough
When stripping my old 1970s 531 for painting I ended up with just the bare frame.
At the same time I had my 2000s Bianchi alloy frame that was replaced under waranty. The alloy frame may have been grams lighter, holding each, I couldn't tell the difference.
 

Alembicbassman

Confused.com
A few years back I picked an early 90s Reynolds 531 road bike with Shimano 7 speed which weighed about 10.5kg

My Halfords Carrera Vanquish with Sora 9 speed weighed about 10.5kg

My 1991 Dawes Reynolds 500 MTB weighed about 14.5kg

My 2015 BH 29er weighed about 14.5kg

So like for like i.e. entry level stuff, the wights have not changed much in 30 years.

I think if you go above entry level there is a difference.

If you compared a Reynolds 753 pro bike from the 80s with a modern Pinarello Dogma race bike there'd be quite a difference.

From what I can gather the Dogma frame is about 1kg lighter at 820g compared to about 1800g for the 753.
 
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rogerzilla

Legendary Member
The big weight penalties on new bikes compared to 30 years ago are discs and STI. If you avoid discs even cheap(ish) bikes can be very light. My Boardman Team Carbon is 17 3/4lb without pedals, and that's with some utterly conventional 32-spoke wheels I built last week because I didn't trust the DT 24/28 set that was on there. My late-80s Ron Cooper - an ex-Cat 1 racing machine* - is more like 22lb and that's with downtube levers. That old 600 tricolor groupset is pretty but not light.

Carbon forks save a lot of weight. I had a 22" 531C bike down to 18.8lb without pedals, standard 1056 groupset, 32-spoke wheels.

*is it bad that I bought it because it has a race number braze-on?
 
531 frame and a fixed wheel is pretty light :dance:


A bloke I know has a Buckley which weighs somewhere about 16 lb, it dates from about 1930, some years before 531
1595695208138.jpeg
(Not his)
 
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