Bike Weight vs Body Weight | GTN Does Science

Power-to-weight is a key metric for cyclists, particularly if you want to go up hills fast! What we wanted to know though, is whether it matters where your weight is – on your bike or on your body? We set out some tests to see if we could find out.

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there’s no hiding from the importance of the power to weight ratio when it comes to speed and efficiency on the bike keep the power the same lose weight and you will go faster well does it matter where you lose that weight from all add that weight to what if you were to add it to yourself or lose it from yourself or add it to your bike or lose it from your [Music] bike i am sure i’m not alone in wishing i was carrying a few less pans whenever i hit an incline on the bike now i used to blame my old heavy bike but that was in the days long before gtm when i didn’t get nice sort of aerodynamic lightweight seeds like these to ride so i know that if i want to improve my power to weight ratio it’s sadly solely down to me however if you do have a slightly heavier bike and do have the capacity to lose a little bit of weight from it is it best to lose the weight from the bike itself or from your own body and by best i guess i mean what is important to you is it costs time aerodynamics etc and ultimately what is going to be the most effective now obviously here on gtm we’ve covered in numerous videos the benefits of aerodynamics versus weight road versus tt and so on and so forth but today we’re going to keep it simple where is it best to lose weight from your bike or yourself all right we’re going to kick things off with a bit of an experiment so we’ve come to this hill just here it’s a pretty steep one so it’s going to be the most notable for the differences now obviously we can’t just suddenly lose a few kilos from our body weights and we don’t have two bites of the same aerodynamics that are a few kilos lighter so that leaves us with the options of having to add the weight yeah now we’re gonna be doing two runs flat out up this hill and we’re gonna be adding weight to ourselves as you can see heather has got her bike weighted up already with five kilograms yeah so i have a kilo’s worth of water and four kilos worth of stones very nice as you can see i’ve got a vest on it it’s a weighted vest 10 kilograms i’ll be starting with on my body heather we started with on a bike will be switching over i’m gonna somehow try and strap this to my bike as i said we’re going to go flat out recording all the usual metrics and comparing after oh god we let ourselves in before i get [Applause] up we were ready i guess so i’m not but we’re just gonna have to do this right ready three two one let’s go go go oh my god [Music] which helps use my legs i’m burning so this is what five kilos adds i’m gonna go and die after this and i don’t know how mark did it with ten it’s ridiculous out of burn [Music] ah the extra weight without the added power that comes with it normally that’s horrible i mean that hell is always horrible but that was exceptionally horrible today [Music] oh my poor legs how was that then you love doing this thank you asking me a question when you’ve got your breath back ah just burns i think this hill does on the best of days i hate this hell and i mean i normally wishing i had less weight they normally add weight i’m definitely wishing did you feel any difference um is that horrible okay what about you i mean ten i was i was thinking about you as a guy out there so i don’t know if i get up with 10. um obviously felt horrible but i feel like it was okay because it was on me so i’m really interested to see what it’s like on the bike yeah i am quite looking forward to taking this off here there we go neither of us can win all right let’s go go for the second run then a little bit of recovery faster [Music] [Music] so ah that felt the worst i think it was very close more just having the weight down there just to feel you have to wait find out what the results are in a moment see how heather’s getting on oh it says i’ve paused i’ll get out slowly i won’t speak this time ah well i am seriously glad that is over and i expect you’re dying to take that weight off your bike yeah my lungs hurt that was a hard effort i know i’m feeling a bit wobbly afterwards even though my effort was quite feeble we’re talking of efforts we should probably have a quick look at the numbers so my first run took me three minutes and 16 seconds and i put out 188 watts and it was probably indicated by the fact that my computer stopped um with an auto pause because i was going so slow my second run was slower even though it had paused and it was three minutes 22 so just six seconds lower even though i put out the two more what’s actually 190 on my second run what about you well yeah obviously i started with the weight on me i went two minutes and 16 seconds on the first run i’ve averaged power of four five four the second run i can’t believe because if that well they both felt terrible but with the weight on the bike two minutes and 17 seconds just a second difference and pretty much the same power four five nine um and heart rate barely anything in it so yeah it’s very even effort i think for me though like i’m not used to doing hills there was a little bit of an element of the second time i had the rucksack so i was a bit fatigued but also i felt really hot with this on and they’re just like i don’t know it’s psychological isn’t it but it doesn’t surprise me that much that there’s not that much difference because we are looking at the whole package really aren’t we yeah i did wonder whether just that whole like the weight being on the bike and the feeling as you go out the saddle etc but honestly both felt terrible in the same way i mean obviously if you are carrying five extra kilos or in marks case ten i don’t mean you’re personally carrying extra kilos but you know rang with you every day then you’re not gonna know it’s not gonna feel so like weird is it that you’re putting it on and if you do go to lose it then you’re gonna really feel that benefit because you’ve been used to carrying it but it is just worth noting that if you do suddenly go and try and lose a load of weight please do it sensibly because if you lose it too quickly you’re going to lose muscle you’re therefore going to lose power and that defeats the whole object of trying to improve your power to weight ratio yeah this all goes out of the window there also the same goes for the bike as well i mean some bikes are heavier in this instance we’re on time trial bikes here that are designed to go faster more aerodynamic and typically are heavier if you go to a lighter bike yes it might immediately save you time up a hill but will it on the flats and where you might need the aerodynamics where these things really iron things out and take over yeah a lot to think about it’s going to come down to your individual situation and your choice but whichever you go for whether losing weight off your body or your bike you do have options i mean admittedly there’s more options on the bike if it comes to losing weight off you just make sure you’ve got a long-term and sustainable plan but you kind of get a double bonus because you’re quite likely to get fitter at the same time and if you are having a lot of weight to lose you’ll probably find that you’ll reduce your surface area a little bit and you’ll be able to get into a better position and all in all you’re going to be more aerodynamic as well as being lighter but on the bike well there’s a few quite quick fixes that you’ve got as options yeah like drinking some water and getting rid of that off the bike yeah if only mark i mean obviously you need to remove the water all together you’d be far better off just stopping and having a pee to be honest i mean on that note though of losing water there’s actually an old guy in the club who i ride with quite often and he used to be a racer and we’ll come to the final climb at the end of a club ride he’ll empty all his water bottles and he’ll just shoot off and leave us all for dead ah now i’m feeling lighter now when it comes to your bike you can of course upgrade to a lighter frame a bit of an extreme and costly upgrade though the next product was perhaps the wheels although again quite a costly upgrade though does sometimes come with quite significant upgrades and advantages to it perhaps in terms of the stiffness the feel of it but also perhaps even aerodynamics beyond that there’s some smaller upgrades that can improve the weight of the bike such as the componentry the pedals the seat posts the saddle rails maybe even removing the handlebar tape all together although we perhaps just leave that to the hill climbing elite out there and we also can’t forget inner tubes now ollie bridgewood from gcn tech is keen to tell you about this one but the upgrade from butyl tubes to latex tubes is quite significant and then of course we’ve got tubeless as well talking of ollie bridgewood well he’s actually made an interesting video looking at rotational weight so i would suggest going over to gcn tech and checking that one out because it goes into all sorts of detail that we haven’t got time to cover today but basically it’s when you put weights at certain points on your wheel and then once you’re at specific speed it will help for the wheels to maintain that momentum but obviously it’s only suitable for certain courses and you are adding weight to your bike so it’s a little bit of a jury is out there on how much that one actually will work but when it comes to me well like i said here at gta and i’m spoiled with top end bikes super light componentry so i think if i want to lose weight from anywhere i’m just going to have to eat less cakes and well maybe get rid of a few water bottles but i’d love to know at the end of this video what you might be going to do are you going to be upgrading your bike or are you going on some sort of diet get involved in the comments section below if you’ve enjoyed it give us a like remember follow us on our social media and why not subscribe here on youtube