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drop some pounds

814 views 11 replies 8 participants last post by  DP1112 
#1 ·
I just picked up an '06 DK xenia (sorry I know this is against the law, but i dont have a dig camera) and I already freakin' love the bike, but of course, as any guy, i'm already thinking of places where it could be a little better....and one thing is weight...it's probably around 35 pounds and i was wondering what ways I could shave some pounds off without dropping like 500 bucks or sacrificing strength. I know, cheap, light, strong...pick two...but from what i got what are some budget minded (not necessarily cheap, just not 500) light"er" components that'll help with weight? thanks ahead of time
 
#2 ·
I dunno, it's pretty slimmed down as it is. The rims are about the only thing I think you could change to save weight without spending too much, but then again it would only be a couple pounds at best. If you wanna go expensive (still under your budget, but more expensive than rims), you could look into some really nice and lighter hubs. Again, this wouldn't be such a significant difference. Probably more so than rims, but still . . .

The only other thing I can think of is going rigid, but seeing as you bought the Xenia over a 24" BMX by DK, I'm guessing you wanted to have suspension.
 
#4 ·
for one cut down your seatpost if you haven't already...unless you are planning on having it up for some reason. that could be a significant weight saver. also, lighter/better pedals assuming the stock ones aren't great, the wheels especially are where a significant amount of weight can be lost...awhile ago i went from a heavy/cheap wheelset to a midweight/nicer one and the change was insane. also a lighter fork could help with the weight and performance.
 
#5 ·
I think the fork would make the largest difference on that bike for sure! the oem one (if I'm looking at the same year as your xenia) is a frickin' boat anchor! Going with a Manitou Gold Label would drop a couple of lb's right there. Does your bike have a 20mm thru-axle in front, or a 10mm bolt-on?
stock bars are probably pretty heavy. most people cut those down as well, to around 24-25" wide.
and listen to the above advise, get a lighter seatpost and cut it down, or better yet, get a Macneil Pivotal SL seat and post combo to drop even more weight.

I'm not sure if the chopstix use a 48spline 19mm spindle, but you could swap that out to ti and lose quite a lot of weight over the oem chromo one.

basically, it's always a combination of changing all components to drop more weight overall, you can't really just change only one thing and magically your bike is light. But of course the largest areas will have the most effect: the frame, the fork, or the wheelset, then work your way up from there....

I'm not sure, but your wheelset and tires don't look like they are heavyweights, so I wouldn't start there...

good luck
 
#10 · (Edited)
snaky69 said:
Tires and rims is where the weight is going to be felt the most. But if you can switch out a few things here and there, you can probably get that bike down in the low 30's.
yeah, exactly, but, you can't easily get much lighter than Rhynolites and K-rads. He could re-lace with double butted spokes, but that won't be much benefit for the hassle involved (although, contrary to what most think, 14/15 guage spokes have been shown to actually build a stronger wheel compared to straight 14g).

the more I look at those specs, the more I can't believe it is 35lbs.... gotta be mostly the fork/frame, among the other parts.... solid chromo axles (which is actually a good thing) and the solid chromo crank spindle...

here is an example of the fork swap. looks like not much else is changed, except for a bunk seat and post and a front brake (which isn't necessary here).
http://gallery.mtbr.com/showphoto.php/photo/21656/size/big don't know whose bike, just found it in the gallery.
 
#11 ·
Just to throw it out there, you can definitely get a lighter stem. Not much lighter, once again, but with the combined weight reduction of a bunch of small things, you may notice a difference.

The fork is probably where you'll get the most weight reduction. Pricepoint is selling new gold labels for no more than $350.
 
#12 ·
ya'll guys are freakin awesome

Thanks for all the responses. I heard the fork is like 7 lbs by itself so if I got a new one that'd be some good weight right there. When we were chopping down the handlebars i noticed those were pretty beefy, but I don't know if I'd want to lighten those. The pedals are some wellgo's, I'm not sure which model, but I can kinda tell they are on the heavy side, nice and grippy though. I thought about posting this in the weight weenie section but i figured they'd be more into light weight XC stuff, so I posted it here. The gold label seems like a pretty good option.
 
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