Riding A 3kg Bike Was Not What I Expected

We got the chance to test ride Andrew Feather’s custom featherweight bike — and it’s INSANE. 🔥
Ollie Bridgewood takes a closer look at every detail that makes this build unbelievably light. But with a bike this light… is it even safe? 👀

⏱️ Timestamps: ⏱️
00:00 We’re Test Riding One Of The Lightest Bikes In The World!
00:59 How This Bike Came To Be
01:47 How Much Does It Weigh?
02:28 Ceramic Bearing Details
03:16 Need To Change Cleats
04:34 Test Climb!
06:14 First Impressions
07:08 Pedals, Frame, Tyres & Impressions Descending
11:08 More Details On The Build: Fork, Carbon Fibre, Rim Brakes & Calipers
12:24 More On The Wheels & Free Hub Sound Check
13:23 Groupset, Brake Levers & Rear Derailleur
14:50 Titanium Chain, Saddle & Seatpost
15:52 Handlebars, Bar Tape, Stem, Mount & Spacers
17:14 Bar End Plugs, Chainrings & Cable Housing
18:23 Compromises
20:05 Conclusion

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What do you think of this bike? 😍

Watch more on GCN Tech…
📹 Have The UCI Gone Too Far? | GCN Tech Show Ep. 391 👉 https://youtu.be/Aqtn-eqTjKk?si=5elNMLj4DQ7ZR__9
📹 Watch our Editor’s Choice Playlist 👉 https://gcntech.co/EditorsChoice
📹 Watch the latest GCN Tech Show 👉 https://gcntech.co/GCNTechShow

🎵 Music – licensed by Epidemic Sound 🎵
You Like It! – Sarah, The Illstrumentalist
1am Omw – Ballpoint
Amen Brother – Matt Large
Blues Rock Dawg – Def Lev
Chicken Truck Race – Heyday Highway (Version E701321d) – Fullmix_high_quality
Chicken Truck Race – Heyday Highway
Crunched – Bonkers Beat Club
East West_west East – Ooyy
Make It Make Sense (Instrumental Version) – Gamma Skies
Maybe I Need Another Vacation – Daniel Fridell
One Way Love – Baegel
Rage Bait – Splasher!
Resiliencia – Roonin
Run Me Down (Instrumental Version) – Roof
Something Special – Duckmaw
Strike Back – Scientific
The Sun – Ooyy
Trust Me I Got This – Stationary Sign

#gcntech #gcn #cycling #roadcycling #roadbike #bike #bikes #bikelife #biketech #lightweight #light #lightbike #lightweightbike #andrewfeather #kom #alpedhuez #titanium #bikebuild #climbingbike #climb #tubulars #carbonbike

📸 Photos – © Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images & © Sprint Cycling Agency

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GCN1757

i’m going to have a go at riding one of the lightest bikes in the world which is actually pretty scary because not only does this bike handle like no other bike I’ve ever ridden it also has these crazy tires which are glued on to the wheels and have no puncture protection because they’re actually designed for indoor veladromes which means that if I get a puncture I’m walking home [Music] which isn’t great because look at these pedals and cleats these things are nuts however this thing is absolutely incredible it is so light and it’s been customuilt for Andrew Feather so that it can hopefully take the most prestigious K in all of cycling in the world uh the attention to detail on it is mind-blowing it’s incredible but I’m going to go through all the details on it and tell you just how they’ve made it so light previously on GCN you may recall us featuring this bike it was a crazy 3.6 kg creation from Fairwheel Bikes an absolutely mega bike shop in Tucson Arizona which sells lots of amazing bikes and crazy light custom builds it is a truly amazing shop anyhow that video was super popular it’s got over a million views and so Jason Wnik from Fairwheel Bikes reached out to us with a cunning plan his idea was to build Andrew Feather our test rider multiple hill climb champion and a guy with more K than anyone else in the world a custom lightweight bike so that he could well try and take the most prestigious K of them all Aldu so how much does it weigh well our scales are saying 3.6 kg jason’s probably more accurate scales say 3.7 so we’ll go with that the crazy thing is is he reckons he could have made it even lighter than this but has deliberately chosen not to so that we can have a few components that will help Feather and his massive power output in in his challenge uh I’m going to go through all of the details on the bike and all of the components in it because the attention to detail is absolutely mind-blowing for example take a look at the bottom bracket bearings and these things are incredible these are ceramic bearings that’s something people will be familiar with but the race is also ceramic and the cartridge that goes in this is completely totally ceramic and they’re amazing now they have to be specially bonded in to to the frame um I’m guessing so that you don’t break them and well they only save around 3 or 4 g over a conventional steel bearing such as this but when you’re trying to make a bike as light as possible details matter and they are just super super cool i mean watch this when I spin it in my finger that is amazing super smooth as well i’m going to go through all the other amazing details on the bike in due course but first I’m going to take it for a spin because I want to see what it’s actually like to ride this mental crazy light bike which is going to require me to change my cleats from these well standard Shimano ones to these things [Music] which isn’t great cuz I mean look at these cleats and pedals these these things are mental [Music] [Music] [Music] i can’t actually even clip in with these pedals i um I might have to swap my cleats back [Music] yeah that’s not happening i’m going to have to make it a bit heavier [Music] [Applause] [Music] right we’re just coming up around a steep bit of road here and oh my goodness like this feels absolutely fantastic as soon as the road goes uphill it it’s Yeah just riding a crazy light bike it’s It just feels easier it’s fantastic feel [Music] like I’m going fast for a change [Music] [Music] all right there’s some people up here i’m going to overtake them let’s drop a couple of gears let’s go cuz you can do on a bike like this [Music] [Applause] [Music] feels like I’m cheating another water another one someone else [Music] [Music] first impressions i feel really nervous not least because this bike costs an absolute fortune but also because the handling is just totally different to anything I’ve ever ridden it has a sort of nervousness to it it just feels very light and twitchy and it feels like it could get blown away in a strong gust it just doesn’t feel planted in the same way that a sort of conventional normal bike does and and I think that is just because it’s so light i think this is something that you’d probably get used to if you rode it lots or we’re used to riding super light bikes but for me typically riding bikes around 7 kilos jumping on to something that’s well you know almost half that it feels crazy it’s totally alien i think Feather’s going to have to get used to it [Music] so the Crazy Light pedals are made by Aerolite and they’re just 63 g but I just felt too nervous to use them on account of the fact I was struggling to clip in and clip out i suspect with more practice and more time tweaking the cleat setup you could use them just fine i was just a bit incompetent so I’ve swapped for my Shimano ones which are more than double the weight the frame has been custom made for Andrew Feather in Italy by Extra Light and it weighs just 580 g for context most bike frames weigh over a kilo so just completely nuts but I have been told that I can just about fit on it and uh well go for a quick test ride cuz I I was just I really wanted to know what it felt like to ride something like this because the lightest bike I’ve ever ridden before was about 5 and a bit kilos this is this is another level [Music] i’m also nervous about the tires as I mentioned because these things are glued on uh that glue incidentally weighs 20 gram they’re Victoria pistas which are a track tire designed for racing in the Olympics on the indoor drrome and so they have no puncture protection at all but that makes them very light for a one-off hill climb effort I think you can get away with it but yeah I’m very nervous about getting a puncture because as I mentioned if I do I’m walking home they’re also incredibly narrow just 23 mm because that too helps save weight and the reason why we’ve got tubulars on here is because tubular tires that you glue onto the rim are still the lightest sort of wheel and tire combination you can have now the other thing that’s making me a little bit nervous and is also and this is a legitimate excuse why I’m riding a bit slowly is because the brakes are not filling me with the most confidence in this urban environment I’m riding in uh I mean I’m used to disc brakes at the moment and haven’t been ridden rim brakes for a few years but with these cork pads in the brakes um yeah they don’t have the best stopping power i’m not looking forward to riding down the hill back home i’m going to take it very carefully indeed i mean they do stop you they’re just not I’m going to be diplomatic they’re not They’re not the best this is quite steep down here they pulling the brakes quite hard oh god bloody hell i am Oh god i’m not descending on on this is is not I don’t feel very confident oh god it’s just the handling it’s just so light even the the the steering response when you the steering is just it’s just less effort to steer it’s it’s weird you have to kind of experience a crazy lightweight bike like this i think to understand to understand what I’m saying [Music] based on first impressions that I’d struggle on this bike if I was doing a a full epic ride grand fondo but for a one-off hill climb effort it’s blooming amazing but uh I think that’s enough yaking for now i’m going to find a nice park so I can tell you all the other amazing mods and ways in which this bike is so light i told you about the frame uh but I didn’t mention the fork so that’s part of the frame set also from Extra Light just 290 g and everything here is carbon fiber of course it is uh we’ve got a nice Fairhe bikes logo on on the down tube there which probably adds a little bit of weight i should have accounted for that um and of course this frame is rim bra because if you’re trying to make a super light build then rim brake still reigns supreme speaking of which the calipers we’ve got on here are from AX Lightness and they are just objects of engineering beauty full carbon fiber incredibly light uh they’ve got these cork pads with THM holders or shoes uh installed on there and the hardware in them is is just full titanium uh now basically as a rule of thumb as I go through this bike if I don’t say something’s titanium just assume that it is because all the hardware has been swapped out to just save little grams here and there now uh these calipers um they uh from from memory weigh about 130 g so incredibly incredibly light uh but they’re also pretty expensive you you’re talking about $1,200 [Music] so the wheels these are also from Extra Light uh and they’re called Cyber Climbs Tubular as we’ve mentioned carbon spokes uh the hubs are extra light and have enduro ceramic bearings naturally uh let’s see what the free hub sounds like they only weigh 690 gram a pair anyway free of sound check cuz when you spin them up they’re just so light like it’s just no weight at all it’s just crazy cuz the wheels are so light there’s just no inertia in the wheel normally a wheel on ceramic bearings will spin so much longer because it’s just there’s more energy stored in the wheel it’s like a flywheel effect but because this is so light it just doesn’t it’s crazy [Music] uh onto the group set and you’re going to absolutely love this so it is based on Stram Red 22 mechanical so their 11-speed group set from well well over 10 years ago still the lightest group set that they’ve ever made uh it’s been used here in a one by setup which it wasn’t technically designed for but a lot of people use it for that especially in in hill climb builds so we’ve only got shifting on the right hand side here the left hand shifter has been gutted um so you can save a load of weight so the way you shift gears on this because some people will be young enough and I’m jealous of those people not to know how it works but you just do one click in and that shifts down and then you do two clicks in and that shifts up the cassette so really cool they used to call it double tap but uh yeah love it and then that shifts uh the gears on the rear derailure here which has been also heavily modified so Jason wanted to try and keep an OEM look to the the brake levers at the front um however he has modified the internals and has saved around 60 g out of out of the shifters which is pretty significant the rear derailure has had a lot of the bolts and hardware changed in it as well uh to titanium of course to save weight and different jockey wheels as well which saves a little bit of weight here and there every little helps the chain is from YBN and that is titanium of course it is it’s pretty cool you can see it’s got hollowed out uh plates and the pins are completely hollow as well so it’s very light uh about 200 g the cassette is from Recon and that’s just 160 g which makes it even lighter than the Stram red cassette that’s 11speed which was famously very light the saddle is rather insane so that’s uh extra light as well it’s their hyper and it’s just 46 g and it does look like some sort of medieval torture device however having just sat on it with padded shorts it’s not too bad uh although I wouldn’t want to do a super long ride on it and well it’s not really a problem for Feather because he climbs almost exclusively out of the saddle uh meaning we could probably just take it off and uh save more weight the seat post is Schmula uh that’s custom too and it’s just 75 g the handlebars are Schmulka 2 and very light about 140 gram they’re 40 cm bar so if the UCI did have jurisdiction here which they do not they would be legal uh onto those we’ve got this very light fabric bar tape um you see this on a lot of crazy light hill climb builds this stuff is just 15 g uh as it’s wrapped here but it’s amazing bar tape adds a surprising amount of weight it’s a standard bar tape typically can add over 100 g to to your bike it’s nuts especially if you use really thick padded stuff um the stem on here is extra light as well but surprisingly it’s alloy it’s not carbon but for good reason it weighs just 87 g and then we’ve got this 3D printed and sort of carbon fiber fusion crazy scaffold like mount for the Wahoo uh on the front here because he’s going to need that for pacing himself so that’s going to add a little bit more weight on Wahoo’s about 120 g if he uses the bolt which is the lightest one um another amazing attention to detail I can show you at the front though is these spacers for the headset so these are 3D printed custom spacers that that Jason’s done super super light and all the uh headset and internals in here as well is from Extra Light and is again just crazy crazy lightweight oh I nearly forgot the bar end plugs they’re carbon fiber as well just 5 g for those and they look amazing um so the chain rings these are are pretty important uh so these are fiber light uh the one that’s on there it’s just 30 g super light but it’s a narrow wide chain ring so you can run it one by and Jason reckons that they’re actually lighter ones than this but he’s chosen this one because um he says it’s it’s a stiffer one and he actually tests for stiffness of of various different components uh in the bike shop it’s one of the cool things they do um and that’ll hopefully help help feather and be better for him uh it’s actually connected onto the chain set with THM titanium bolts of course it is um the cables are also pretty special you can’t see them because they’re hidden behind this really cool segmented uh alligator housing which is also very very light pretty much the lightest stuff you can get for cable housing uh but the cables I’ve got one here they’re titanium and they’re from KCNC again most cables are stainless steel that you’d use in bikes so pretty exotic but it saves a few grams [Music] so when I said there were some compromises made and they could have made this bike even lighter I wasn’t lying and probably the biggest example is the chain set now this is a THM uh clvicular chain set which is the kind of like the Rolls-Royce of lightweight chain sets just beautiful German carbon fiber um now this weighs normally uh 293 g give or take which is incredibly light but this one’s a bit heavier than that and that is because it’s actually got a power meter built into it uh which is incredible i didn’t even know that they did this but that is something that we felt was absolutely necessary so that Feather can pace his effort with a with a power meter and see his power output also on the the Wahoo that we’re going to put um on on the outfront mount here um not just for pacing but also for you guys cuz we want to know the power that he does up due i think it’ll be amazing to see someone as strong as him another compromise is is the skewers so these are extra light they’re just 28 g but they have levers on them so you can quick release them you can get lighter uh sort of skewers that don’t have a quick release that you bolt in but we kind of figured that the practicality and ease of use of a quick release skewer outweighs the uh the sort of bolt-on ones so for ease of use we we’ve gone for that um another thing though is you may notice there’s no bottle cages uh on this bike and that’s because Andrew Feather can drink before and he can drink after he’s ridden Alz but not during so there you have it do you think that Andrew Feather can get the Alz K on this bike let us know in the comments and also make sure you subscribe so that you don’t miss his attempt it’s coming very soon massive thanks to Jason and all the guys over at Fairhe Bikes in Tucson Arizona uh this thing is absolutely amazing you guys are amazing and if you’re wanting a lightweight build or some advice on how to do a lightweight build contact those guys cuz they are they’re the masters of of this stuff uh I’m going to go now i think I’m going to take this for one quick last spin before I give it to Andrew Feather cuz it is it feels amazing when I ride uphill and I I might even get close to one of his kms a boy can dream right love you bye