Road Bike, Cycling Forums banner

Your weight vs. Your bike's weight

108K views 483 replies 333 participants last post by  g3p 
#1 ·
Couldn't find this posted, so apologies if it's redundant.

This forum focuses on bike weight and every once in awhile someone talks about the losing a pound from the engine. I'm curious about the ratios of rider to bike weights on this forum.

Me- 180 lbs; 6' 1"
Bike- about 17.5
(yeah, we're pigs by some standards)

I don't think we need to qualify rider weight, but with the whole "do pedals count?" thing...
 
G
#258 ·
Me: 5'7", 128 lb
Bike: 26.5 lb

my bike/rider weight ratio appears to be on the high side for this list... Right now my only working bike is a hybrid loaded up with racks for commuting. My bike's weight roughly double when fully loaded with cargo.
 
#268 ·
5'9" and 160 pounds. Bike is 15.6 pounds with cages, pedals and computer. Two bottles are 3 pounds and seat bag. I estimate fully loaded at just over 19 pounds before I start drinking :D
 
#269 ·
5'9" and 254 lbs, bike weight= irrelevant at this point. Better than 275 right?

BUT, I FEEL lighter when Im on my Tarmac and not my Trek 1200 LOL

Power to weight ratio is what Im concerned with right now. I keep telling myself, less weight=more power for those NASTY Southeastern Ohio hills
 
#278 ·
Problem with weight is that people get on the internet and read a bunch of sources that say you should way between such and such for such and such height, health and life insurance companies rate people like this all the time, even BMI is not correct because at 182 6' tall your right at where overweight begins. So what is wrong with these charts? They don't take bone mass into consideration. If your 6' tall trying to weigh 170 and are large bone person (keep the mind out of the gutters boys) you will look emancipated.

Some people are genetically large, these would be the gladiator warrior's of days gone by, naturally larger people need to be working out with weights to keep their natural muscle mass or large percentage muscle and not fat as most are today. People with large bone structures typically also have a larger muscle mass which of course both weighs more than fat and they will exceed the BMI ratings...but their not anywhere near overweight or unhealthy.

Also naturally large people have larger hearts to handle the body weight, guys with small bone and body mass who try to become body builders and turn to drugs to get large put a huge amount of stress on their hearts because the heart wasn't designed for that person to do that and thus we end up with a lot of those guys dying from heart issues.

Men with a wrist measurement less than 6.5 inches have a small frame, between 6.5 and 7.5 inches a medium frame, and over 7.5 inches a large frame. Use this information to calculate your optimal weight. You can do this by consulting your doctor or using an online weight calculator like the one at Ideal Body Weight Calculator - MyDietExercise.com Problem with this calculator age is not taken into consideration. Obviously the best way is have a doctor tell you, but you can get real close with this information. The older you get you need to have a little extra body weight to in case of illness but that should not be more then 10 pounds by the time your 75. The age thing is tricky so I'm not real sure if I got the pound factor right, this was base on what I heard and read a long time ago.
 
#280 ·
Well, I finnaly took delivery of my new bike (my first road bike) and did two short rides of 10 miles and 15 miles.
The first thing I noticed was how much more unstable it feels beneath me vs my old MTB.
The second thing was how much more play there is in the steering.
I'd like the steering to require alot more effort.
If anyone has any tips on how to make the steering a bit firmer I would appreciate it.
 
#281 ·
The unstable feeling your getting is the fact your on narrow tires, once you get use those tires it won't bother you. The play in the steering is not play, its responds faster then your use to. Make sure your tire pressure is right see this site but use the 2nd calculator not the first or third, and use your total body weight and bike weight: Bicycle tire pressure calculator

The only remote issue you may have is a loose headset, have the LBS check it if your not sure, personally I think it's fine your just not use to the feel of a road bike.
 
#283 ·
Congratulations on a job well done!!!!

Be careful with the weight loss, some people have different size bone structure, and a large bone person should weigh a bit more then small bone person and the BMI doesn't take that into consideration. Also some people have more muscle mass then lean people and muscle weighs more then fat thus a muscular person could be overweight according to BMI's.

Here's how to measure bone size: How to Measure Your Wrist Size to See If You Are Big Boned | eHow.com

Then once you find that out go here for weight ranges depending on bone size: Height and Weight Chart - height weight chart, weight height chart

This stuff still doesn't take into consideration muscle mass, but it's closer then BMI by itself. If you want to delve into this more then you need to figure your muscle mass thus here is how that's done: Calculating Lean Body Mass (LBM)

Even a body builder though could be putting their hearts into jeopardy because if the builder was naturally a lean person and forced his body to pack on the pounds with muscle he could strain his heart. Your heart is sized according to the body it's in, if you overweight the heart with either fat or muscle it puts undo stress on the heart that it wasn't originally designed to handle.
 
#285 ·
Update for me...and also shows a range...

I started 2011 @ 159 lbs - the high end of my "winter weight" and started P-90X (helped motivate my 13 yr old son for pre-season football training and good cross training for me). Lowest for the season was around Death Ride, and I weighed around 145 lbs.

My bikes (everything mounted incl. computer, cages, etc):

2011 6 Series (Project 1) Madone - 15.8 lbs
2011 Moots RSL - 16.2 lbs
2011 Moots PsychloX - 20.0 lbs

Mind you none of these bikes are running extremely light weight equipment - I could shave a pound (or more) from the wheel sets alone. But the bikes are built to be DURABLE and RELIABLE for century's and 2x's.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top