How I Made My Bike Faster For Hill Climbs

Join Ollie as we take a deep dive into the modifications made to this Orbea Orca, getting its weight down to a staggering 6.2kg! Discover the five key areas of optimization, from changing the chain set and experimenting with a 1x setup for the National Hill Climb, to optimizing the chain’s friction with a double speed chip wax treatment. We also cover crucial areas like low-weight lighting, and subtle pressure tweaks that go beyond just saving grams!

Chapters: ⏱️
0:00 – Intro & The 6.3kg Bike
0:37 – Chainset: Lighter Alternatives to Dura-Ace
1:33 – Gearing: The 1x Conversion & Chainline
4:14 – Cassette, Axles & Ceramic Bearings
5:16 – Optimizing the Chain for Speed and Friction
8:46 – Minimalist Lights and Cockpit Mods
12:02 – Wheels
13:36 – Tyres: Width, Pressure and Tweaks
16: – Quick-Fire Lightweight Tips & Final Weight

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This is my Orbeea Orca and it weighs just 6.3 kg. So, in this video, I’m going to tell you some of the modifications I’ve done to help it achieve that low weight. But I’m also going to tell you about some other mods I make to hill climb bikes to optimize them because it’s not all about saving weight. Oh, and this one has probably my favorite finish I’ve ever had on one, but it’s this mainly bare carbon with the copper logos and just the minimum amount of paint and lacquer, which actually does save a significant amount of weight. So, if you are wanting to save weight, this is the kind of finish to go for. So, the first thing I’m going to talk about is the chain set. So, I’ve got a Jura Ace chain set on there. Um, it’s what the bike came with and normally that is a brilliant chain set. you know, world championships and to France have won with that chain set, but for a hill climb, you can go much lighter. So, Jura Ace chain sets uh typically about 690 g uh with a power meter that can go up to over 700 g, like 720 g, but there are a lot of lighter options out there. So, rotor chain sets are a bit lighter. FSA ones can be lighter, too, if you go for their carbon crank arm options. And there are some emerging Chinese brands that are becoming very popular as well, such as C Bray uh and also Ellie Lee, which both of which will save you in the region of 300 g off a Shimano Jura Ace chain set, which is blooming loads. I mean, that would get this bike down to 6 kilos. So, I’ll see. I might if I can get one of those, I might try and try and fit one of those. Um, but one of the things I’m also going to do is change the gearing because you don’t need a big outer chain ring for the National and you can save a lot of weight by going one by. So, that’s what I’m going to talk about now. Now, in terms of optimizing the gearing, this is the the key area where it isn’t just all about weight and it is also about reducing friction and making it more efficient. Now, one by will save a lot of weight. And this is a little bit tricky to do because I’ve been struggling to find a one by single chain ring for the front that is the size that I want. You can work out the size that you need based upon gear calculators. These are freely available online. Type it in. You can work out that the cadence you’re you’re going to want to do and for a given gear ratio that you have and the speed that you intend to travel at. And then you can work out what ratios are going to suit you. Now, based on that, I can get away with the 36 ring that’s on there. Maybe this one’s a 40 on here. So, I might try that as well, but I’m struggling to find a narrow wide. Now, you’d want to use a narrow wide because that gives you better chain retention. Uh, in the absence of a front derailer, you don’t want to drop your chain. However, I have run non narrow wide rings in the past and it’s been okay. And I think initially what I’m going to do is try and do that. Uh now I’m going to set this up with just the inner chain ring on the inner position. That’s key because it alters your chain line if you put it on the outside and the gears that I want to be optimal in terms of chain line are the inner ones. So I’m going to be on the little ring and then on the top half of the cassette. So that’s what we’re going to sort of optimize for. Although to do that, I’m going to experiment trying to fit it uh with some shorter chain ring bolts in the absence of the outer ring. Now, hopefully that will work. What I’m going to do is actually take this out for a ride after I’ve fixed it tonight um on the hills of Bath and I will see if it works and if I’m able to keep my chain and I’m not having issues with chain retention and chain drop. If I do have issues, um, we will write the issues on screen now in a in a caption after we filmed this. Um, so yeah, you’ll find out. An update on the chain ring. I’ve just gone out and done some training on the bike. Um, and done some hard efforts similar to the hill climb efforts at full power up some local climbs and no issues at all. No drop chains, absolutely fine. If I was, you know, for everyday riding, I wouldn’t want to run this setup, but for just hill climbs, I’m I’m confident with that. I think it’s all right. So, yeah. Uh, something else I worked out when I was optimizing my gearing choices was the cassette is bigger than what I need. So, I’ve got an 1134 cassette on there. I use that all the time. Um, but by switching to an 1130 cassette, which should be fine. Uh, I can save 30 g. And well, that feels like quite a lot compared to some of the other modifications I’m going to tell you about. As I take this wheel out, it gives me a good opportunity to show you one of my other weight saving modifications, which is the through axles. Now, these are titanium front and rear, and they save about 50 g overall, which is actually quite a lot. I’ve also got ceramic bearings throughout the bike, which feels absolutely beautiful and super smooth. And also, just check this out. So, the next thing is is how I’m optimizing the chain. Now, of course, I’m waxing it. You knew that already. Uh, but what you might not know is there’s a few other things you can do that go even a few steps further than that to make it even better. So, the first thing is the type of wax I’m going to be using, which is the the standard Silka uh super secret wax blend, but I’ve put a speed chip in it. But I’ve not just put one speed chip in, I’ve put two. So, the speed chip has additives in there that make it even more low friction uh and even faster. The downside is is that wax treatment doesn’t last as long on your chain and you’ll typically in dry conditions get 8 hours run time out of a chain with that treatment. However, if you put an additional speed wax uh tablet in there, you reduce that run time even further, but you do make your chain even faster. So, I’ve done double speed chip. Of course, this hill climb is only going to be like 3 minutes long. I’m also gonna have to warm up and I’m gonna have to run the chain in, but that that will be fine within the run time. So, that is is perfect for this, but also would apply to, you know, even slightly longer hill climbs than this. If you were trying to optimize your chain for al dues, this would be the optimal way to do it. Uh, but that’s not all. There is another little interesting detail with chain optimization, and that is to not use a brand new chain and then just wax it. Um the reason for this and it’s something I learned fairly recently from uh engineers at ceramic speed and that is that the chain itself actually self polishes and becomes faster as the metal links articulate against uh each other. And so once a chain has been used for for several hours it actually becomes faster. So, this chain, I’ve previously stripped it and waxed it and been using it. And now I’m rewaxing it ahead of the national hill climb. And that once it’s been run in, which will take around 15 to 30 minutes, it will be then at in its optimum state. Just give this chain one last slosh. So, just get the wax incorporated into it. Um, and I’ve reduced it to the the correct temperature, 75 degrees, to withdraw it so that the wax is viscous enough that it coats the chain nicely. Now something else with the chain is I am running the correct length chain. Now that that might sound might sound pretty obvious. Um however within hill climbing a modification that some people do is actually shorten the chain and run a short chain. The thinking being that it saves a little bit of weight, um, which it does running a few less links. And also, if you’re running a one by situation like I’m going to experiment with, having that extra bit of chain tension can help the chain stay on the the front ring without a chain catcher or without a front derailure. However, this is not great because again from speaking to the ceramic speed engineers, I know that doing that actually increases your drivetrain friction at an alarming amount. You know, you’re talking several watts lost just through the added friction by having a chain which is too tight. Uh so I’m not going to do that. But like again I said earlier, when I experiment, we’ll see if I retain my chain. Now the next mod is absolutely brilliant and I can’t take credit for this. Um, as I’ve got these from Alex Payton. Now, in the UK hill climb races, you have to run lights front and rear. It’s the rules. Okay? So, there’s no actual specific rules beyond that about the lights in terms of how bright they have to be or or anything. And so, these are my lights that I’m going to be running. Now, Alex found these online. Um, and this thing is ridiculously tiny. It weighs like a gram. And there you go. It’s a light. It works. And it only has to work for 3 minutes. So that’s my light and I’m sticking to it. Now the thing is is how do I mount this? So what I’m going to do is I’ve got one of these front. I’ve got another one to go on the rear that’s red. I’m going to mount them with a bit of epoxy resin and just bond it to the front there. So that’s what we’re going to do. Apparently, this epoxy resin glues in 5 minutes. [Music] So, I got to put one on the rear as well. And the rear stipulates you’ve you’ve got to have a red light. Um, so Alex got these ones from China online that are uh when you turn it on, it’s red, but then it turns green and then it turns blue. sake. So, what I’m going to do is I’m still I’m going to use one of the the white ones on the front, the same as what’s on the front. And I’m going to have to get a little bit of red plastic and glue it and stick it over so that it appears to be like a red light. That’ll work. And I’ll just bond this on the back here onto like the seat post or something. Be right as rain. That that’ll be fine. Bit of a chemistry nerd stuff for you. Right. epoxy resin. Um it’s actually a cool bit of organic chemistry. It’s a polymerization reaction between an epoxide pre-olymer and um a nuclear file, usually a an amine. [Music] So, other things with the cockpit, uh, well, I’m using the Wahoo Volt because it’s the smallest, lightest Wahoo naturally, but I still want to record my my data and my my power and my ride and actually quite useful for pacing as well. Um, the other thing is I’m running no bar tape because it saves weight and definitely for a 3minute effort, I don’t need bar tape. You just have to be a bit careful though that you’re not knocking your handlebars on the top tube. um as the bar tape does actually offer a fair bit of protection and cushioning from that happening and um well yeah you don’t want to damage your top tube. Uh one thing you could do if you did want to have a bit of bar tape is use this stuff. So the guys at Fairwheel switched me on to this. They use it on their lightweight builds and it was on the crazy light hill climb bike that they did for us. Um so it’s this tessa tape and um I actually used this when on my previous Orbea when we were at Al Dair. So, wrap the bars in this and it it only adds about 20 gram. But yeah, in this instance, I’m not going to use it. But yeah, this is a good cheap alternative and a cheap option if you want really lightweight bar tape on your bike. So, I’m going to talk about tires and wheels now. Now, the wheels I’ve got in here are these beautiful Princeton Alters, which have ceramic bearings in the DT-180 hubs. They’re really light. They’re under, well, just under 1,200 g a pair. And there are lighter wheels out there. I’m aware of this. You can get wheels that are less than a kilo a set, which is ridiculous. Um, however, these are the lightest wheels that I’ve got. And they’re also really, really stiff. And I actually have a theory about wheels that are really, really light. Because first up is it’s often difficult to get something that is still really stiff when you’re really hammering it out of the saddle for for 2 to 3 minutes. Stiffness is key, but also in my experience of riding very light wheels, I have a theory that they might not actually be the fastest. And that’s all to do with the inertia. And I find that there’s a sort of sweet spot. It feels like this anyway around this sort of point. Now, this is something that I’m going to have to test in a future GCN tech video, and it’s something I’ve spoken about with Sai, and he thinks there’s something in it as well. It feels because a wheel can be so light that it doesn’t hold any inertia. It doesn’t have a sufficient flywheel effect. It’s something that I experienced on the crazy light bike that I rode this year. It felt very jerky, like every pedal revolution was sort of surging you forward a bit, but not holding that nice fluid momentum. So, yeah, I’m going to investigate that. But these are the wheels I’m going for. Um, the other key thing with them is tire choice. Now, you can save a lot of weight by going to a tube type uh specific clincher tire rather than a dedicated tubeless tire. These are the Pirelli uh P 0 RS tubeless type tire. And I’m going to be using those. The reason being is that although they are heavier than the tube type tire, uh I’ve recently, well, fairly recently been shared some information from Pirelli and they’ve actually done a load of rolling resistance testing on the two types of tire. And this one, although it is slightly heavier, um is slightly faster uh in terms of rolling resistance. And that’s because the the tubeless tire has a different construction with something that Pirelli calls it speed core construction. It’s a more modern construction technique for a tire. And so consequently, it has lower rolling resistance. So much so that when I’ve calculated that for this the paces that I’m going to be going at, it actually comes out at being, you know, slightly faster uh on on paper um for this type. Also, with their updated smart tube TPU tubes, um you can make it lighter as well. So using the fastest TPU tubes that they do, uh you can actually save a little bit of weight over a tubeless system. So at the moment, these are set up tubeless. I’m going to switch that out to a to the lightest TPU tubes um because you lose a tiny tiny sort of half a watt of rolling resistance, but you you save quite a bit of weight. So that’s a modification I’m going to do, although I’m not going to do that in here right now cuz it’s going to be quite messy. So something else to do with the tires is the width. So, these are currently 28s. I’m going to swap them out for 26s. The reason being is 26 is a little bit lighter. And the road surface of this particular hill climb now is is pretty good. It’s pretty smooth tarmac. Not going to need a 28. 26 should be fine. And also optimize that tire pressure. So, use the the Silka tire pressure calculator is my sort of go-to. But I do actually tweak the tire pressure a bit different from what it suggests in the pressure calculator uh for hill climbs. The reason being is that the way you are sat on the bike on a hill climb, I’m I’m not seated for a 3minute effort. I’m going to be out the saddle the whole way and so I’ve got a lot more weight on my front wheel. And if you have your pressure quite low, I feel that there you’re potentially getting hysteresis losses. Um, and as that’s as the tire deforms under your weight, you’re sort of pumping on on the handlebars and it’s causing the tire to just squidge and have those losses. So, I actually prefer to have a bit more pressure in in the front tire. And that is something that I know that other well, I’m going to say other hill climbers. Um, like champion hill climbers I I know like Dan Evans and and Andrew Feather, they they do that for that exact reason. So, some quickfire lightweight things. Uh, pedals, Shimano Jura Ace, a little bit heavier than the Speedplay Nanos, but the system weight is lower because the combined weight of the pedal and the cleat is less. So, we’re going for that. Uh, other thing is the saddle Cellar Italia SLR uh Techno, which is the carbon one. Very light. Um, and saves about 30 g over the the normal padded one. I’m not going to be sat on it. Uh, and the front brake caliper mount is is titanium as well, which saves about 10 grams. That’s come from Oleg at Twisted Wheels. Thanks, mate. Um, and yeah, saves a bit more. I mean, I could run a 140 rotor at the front instead of a 160, but I can’t be bothered. I mean, even I’ve got limits. This is ridiculous. Uh, I could take the shifter hoods off as well and save a bit of weight, but no, I want to that’s where I’m gripping the bars. I want that shifter hood on there as a bit of padding, a bit of comfort. So, um yeah, I mean you can go absolutely crazy if you want to, but um yeah. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the bike is now down to 6.2 kilos. So, if I do swap the chain set out for something lighter, 5.9. So, there you go. Bunch of modifications that I’ve done. Uh I absolutely love optimizing bikes for all sorts of things, but especially hill climbs. I just think like it’s loads of fun thinking about it, how you can make your bike lighter. But I hope you’ve got some useful ideas from this and some useful bits of information. And if there’s other things that you’d recommend that I haven’t thought of or things that I could quite easily do, let me know in the comments section. And also let me know which you think is the most ridiculous lightweight modification uh that I’ve made. Um I’m going to go now, but make sure you check out the hill climb videos that we’re doing and well how we get on at the National Hill Climb Championships very soon on the channel. Love you. Bye.