On Monday, June 17, 2019 at 6:57:10 PM UTC+2, Tom Kunich wrote:
OK, I just went out and weighed my road bikes again. Just like I would walk out the door with.

Basso Loto - this is the final year of production and used Basso Tubing Concepts tubes instead of Columbus tubes. 22.12 lbs

Time VX - 28 mm tires and aluminum BB lugs and multi-shaped carbon tubes. - 21.9 lbs

Colnago CLX 3.0 - carbon wheels and everything else possible. 20.17 lbs.

Now it seems pretty plain that I could reduce the weight of the Basso to very close to that of the Colnago. But to do so would mean I would have to put carbon wheels on it. And maybe a carbon fork which would put me in a position of having a hybrid carbon/steel bike which seems to kill the idea of having a steel bike in the first place.

The real question is does this weight really make a difference?

A 22 lb bike and a 190 lb lard-assed rider makes that 2 lb difference only 0.01% difference in weight and the truth is that lifting that weight up the climbs is far overshadowed by the high speed frictional drag of the body.. I could more than off-set that difference by riding on the drops downhill and on the flats if it wasn't so uncomfortable to an old broken down body.

As a comparison I pulled the Pinarello Stelvio off the shelf and without a flat kit or water bottle it weighed in at 21.7 lbs. The Pinarello also has custom tubing and the tubes have a slightly larger diameter than the Basso. On the local fast descents the Pinarello doesn't bounce at the bottom. And presently I have heavy Look cyclocross pedals on it so that the weights of the Pinarello and Basso are probably identical with a more modest flat kit and full water bottles.

I have a Ridley cross bike that rides like a dream as a gravel bike and the Redline Conquest cyclocross bike with disk brakes. If I could sell these two I would have sufficient room to keep all of my road bikes and start riding the Pinarello again rather than trying to keep it in clean condition.

What these numbers tell to me is that the only real advantage of the carbon fiber bikes is that they are more aero and so you can hold a higher speed into a headwind. What if I were to simply lower my expectations of speed-into-the-wind and keep all of my road bikes and simply concentrate on upgrading them to 11 speeds since it is unlikely that the 12 speed will ever find any markets outside of racing? Keeping the 10 speed would be preferable but spare parts are getting much more difficult and expensive to come by.

Any opinions? Jay in particular is more of the riding type I do but perhaps Duane and a few others so this sort of riding as well.

Tom, your bikes are relatively heavy according to current light weight 'standards'. I have a sub UCI weight bike (6.7 kg IIRC) and an aerobike which is a little heavier (7.6 kg). I'm faster on the latter.
Just ride the bikes you have and enjoy. Everybody gets slower with age. Fortunately you can set so much filters on Strave that makes you the fastest on one or more segments ;-)

Lou