Weight Watchers:

A Comparison of Bicycle Weights

A guy brought in a fancy Italian frame a couple of weeks ago. I won't say the brand here, but suffice it to say that it is a very expensive, high tech racing frame made by a very well known company. He brought it in because the aluminum dropout had broken and was wondering if it could be fixed. It was a $3,000 frame, and the manufacturer told him "no warranty". Well, it could not be fixed economically (aluminum glued to carbon fiber can't be easily fixed), but while I was holding it I thought to myself that it felt pretty heavy.

It was made from super high tech aluminum with a carbon fiber rear triangle glued on to the back of it. I put it on our digital scale, and it weighed in at 3.8 pounds for the frame only. I grabbed one of our Rodriguez Outlaw steel frames that was hanging in the shop and it weighed 2.6 pounds. This was a direct comparison between 2 frames on the same digital scale at the same time.

Our frame is over a pound lighter, and over $1,000 less money. It's made right here in Seattle, and has a warranty if something ever breaks. It rides much more comfortably to boot. It occurred to me to then weigh one of our stock Rodriguez Adventure touring frames at this same time. The frame that I grabbed happens to belong to the women in the opposite article. Anyway, I digress, her touring/commuting frame, complete with cantilever bosses and all only weighed 3.9 pounds. I don't know what the catalog for that fancy Italian bike claims that frame weighs, but I'll just bet it doesn't say 3.8 pounds.....hmmmmm.....

Click here if you'd like to read of a series of articles that I wrote for The Bicycle Paper on bicycle frame materials.