Of course weight matters. When climbing. It also matters if you live in a walk up, like I do, and carry your bike up and down the stairs several times a day. I don’t like ‘stupid’ weight, where there is zero thought to weight in the design process. The basic bicycle is the greatest invention and should be treated with respect if you pray at the throne of Bikedom. That means no stupid heavy crap.
Weight matters when climbing. I have a much nicer day climbing up into the Oregon Cascades on my very light S-works Crux, than I do on my full suspension mountain bike or Atlantis. It feels far easier and is quicker up hills. If I lived somewhere flat-ish, I wouldn’t care much about weight. I’d obsess over rolling resistance instead. But I live in Bend and all the fun rides are up. I enjoy my Atlantis more since I gave it an extreme drivetrain diet and dumped a pound or two. Esthetics: Most expensive and light components are kinda ugly and far from classic and warm. Most of the heavy stuff is cheap and ugly. There seems to be a narrow area where you get light, pretty and strong. Shopping seemed to get hard, so I went with lightweight, and against the Riv esthetics with my drivetrain. I am very fortunate that I was gifted a Sram XX1 gruppo which is now on my Atlantis. I am happier and lighter with getting rid of two chainrings, a full set of chain ring bolts, front shifter, derailleur and cable, and aluminum cranks. I have played with rear racks, going with a Tubus for awhile, but went to the heavier Nitto as I use a Nitto stem and Nitto WTB dirtdrops from the eighties and wanted some semblance of matchy-matchy. My bike is my only transportation and has been for many years, and a strong rear rack is important for rather heavy grocery loads, usually around forty to sixty pound loads. The Nitto rack has more sway than the Tubus as it isn’t triangulated, and it weighs more, but I prefer it. Weird. I guess matchy-matchy is more important than weight somewhere in my emotions, because it makes no sense. I am interested in how everyone pick a bike and components/accessories. Emotionally? Logically? A mix? How much do looks matter? Efficiency? I would think that most on here pick emotionally, as Rivendells tickle the beauty button and the Riv lifestyle is warm and easy, versus high tech plastic clothed people, and bikes with six hundred dollar power meters and computers and electronic shifting, who usually ride smileless doing intervals. I have high tech bikes and my Atlantis. I ride my Atlantis constantly, and my other bikes only to ‘train’ for summer bikepacking. My high tech plastic bikes are just appliances, and my Atlantis is a classic Triumph cafe motorcycle, which I LOVE. For me, I think it is the lugs. I want to emotionally bond and buy a Gus boots as my new “the one”, but the lack of lugs and other major issues, don’t twang my heartstrings. From past experiences I know the ride quality alone does not cover up an appliance. My Crux rides like a magic carpet, but is attractive like a cheap refrigerator. A bikepacking and car replacement bike needs to be a reasonable weight, at least here climbing in the Oregon Cascades, unless you are a masochist. A simple straight tubed frame with lugs and a sloping tube with 2.8 tire clearance would be my ultimate Riv. The sloping top tube would allow me to run a suspension seatpost AND a HiteRite for bikepacking, the lugs would make it beautiful and the simple clean design would be efficient both in rear cable routing and tubing weight. As of now, I am ‘weighting’ on the changes on the Gus before I have a custom lugged frame made, or buy a Ti bikepacker such as the Ti Fargo or Bearclaw. Heartstrings? Or less ‘shut up legs, the bike isn’t heavy’? I am curious on everyone’s feelings about how you decide on a bike so I can figure out how I decide. 🧐 🤪 I think any bike I buy will be inferior to my Atlantis, and I fear the expensive purchase. How to decide....sigh. I know it won’t be ‘stupid’ heavy (designed with no respect to weight) unless it is so beautiful I don’t care. I haven’t seen a bike like that though... Clayton #dirtdancedesigns -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
