Some Carbon Bling

There's a table of component weights further down for those who don't want to read my ramblings.

I recently spent some money to make my Scott a little lighter. Firstly I'll say that it's pretty light anyway and secondly the shaving off of a few grammes is going to make no difference to my mediocre performance as a cyclist - however I came into to some money (work bonus) and thought I'd treat  myself to a few items.

I bought:
Shimano 105 5800 Carbon SPD-SL Pedals

 
These were to replace the Shimano PD-R540 pedals I have used for a long time. Quoted weights for the 5800 pedals is 250g, vs 350g for the 540. My actual weights showed that the 5800 pedals came out at 280g and the 540 pedals at 330g. I am not quite sure where the discrepancy comes from in actual weights but I can claim a saving of 50g.


3T Stylus 25 Team Layback Carbon Seatpost

Currently I have been running an Ritchey aluminium post and chose the above carbon post. The Ritchey tube weighed in at320g and the 3T tube at 230g - a weight saving of 90g

3T ErgoNova Team Carbon Road Handlebar + Cinelli Cork Ribbon Bar Tape (in black)

The fitted FSA aluminium bars weighed in at 310g and the 3T bars at 230g, so a weight saving of 90g (excludes bar tape).

Continental Grand Prix 4000S II Folding Road Tyre

 

This was to replace the exiting rear tyre (a Continental GP400S). This original tyre was previously on the front and had done a total of ~6000miles. It was not worn excessively but had a lot of cuts and I was nervous about its resistant to punctures especially for the RideLondon2014 that I was doing a few weeks later


Outcome


I have prepared this table (and tables are really hard in Blogger) to summarise the changes made. Given that I am never 100% sure of the scales I use, I weighed each part 3 times to check a level of consistency.

Component/details	Weigh 1	Weigh 2	Weigh 3	Average
Bike Weight - starting status	8.24	8.23	8.24	8.24
Pedals
PD-R540 Pedal weight	0.33	0.33	0.33	0.33
105-5800 Pedal weight	0.28	0.28	0.28	0.28
Weight Saving	0.05	0.05	0.05	0.05
Bike Weight with 105-5800 Pedals	8.18	8.17	8.17	8.17
Weight Saving	0.06	0.06	0.07	0.06
Seat Tube
Ritchey Seat Tube + FSA Saddle	0.6	0.6	0.6	0.60
Ritchey Seat Tube (Aluminium)	0.31	0.32	0.32	0.32
3T Seat Tube (Carbon)	0.24	0.23	0.23	0.23
Weight Saving	0.07	0.09	0.09	0.08
Bike Weight with 105-5800 Pedals & Carbon seat Tube	8.09	8.09	8.1	8.09
Weight Saving	0.15	0.14	0.14	0.14
Handlebars
FSA Aluminium Handle bars (42cm)	0.31	0.31	0.32	0.31
3T Carbon Handle bars (42cm)	0.21	0.21	0.2	0.21
Weight Saving	0.1	0.1	0.12	0.11
Final Bike Weight	7.97	7.97	7.97	7.97
Weight Saving (measured)	0.27	0.26	0.27	0.27
Weight Saving (theoretical)	0.23	0.25	0.28	0.25

The outcome was that I have managed to lose 270g in total from the bike bringing it in at just under 8kg (which was the target). Also I managed to measure 20g better weight saving that was theoretically possible. On the down side it cost be more than £1/g to get this saving!

Given this there is nothing more that I would do on a piece meal basis to save weight. I could get a Ultegra groupset for example but would probably only save 100g or so. There might be some scope for weight saving with some new wheels but again my RS80 wheels are pretty good so it would be marginal.

At 8kg its a good bike weight and to be honest the bike is far better than I can do it justice for

I also think that the ride is marginally better though there is no engineering metric I can show this to be the case