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Bicycle Science Vol.1: Bike Weight

Bicycle Science Vol.1: Bike Weight

19th Mar 2021

There’s no delicate way to put this, so we’re not even going to try.

The bike industry is riddled with BS.

We don’t just mean that odd trace you get on your tyres and lower frame from riding near a farm. No, this stuff goes handlebars deep. With the unsuspecting rider packed in so tight, you’ve not even got any wiggle room left to skid and leave a mark.

Graphic enough?
We’ve not started on the smell yet.

Mango Bikes are a strictly anti-BS brand.
Our Bicycle Science series will flush out the industry nonsense, and deliver the stuff you need to know when you’re buying a bike.

No waste, just delicious bike content........

/bs-vol1

First up, the weirdly secretive subject of ‘Bicycle Weight’.

Here we have the famous open line “It weighs this much… (without pedals)”.

“Well, that’s just great Martin, thanks. That few kgs shaved off will be most appreciated, and I’m sure no one will question that I’m carrying the thing over my shoulders.”

The thing is, pedals don’t even weigh that much, usually between 200-400g. So you’d think it would be easier to simply include them in the BS bio (sales blurb). But that would be too easy.

By not being upfront, and then making the bike out of some type of over-engineered carbon that’s usually only used to make planes or rockets, they can hike the price of your model by £6000.

That’s not to say this could never come in handy though. On a hill run in the Tour de France, it could shave 45 seconds off your 5 hour ride. Wonderful.

“Actually, now you come to mention it, I’m not competing in the Tour de France. Not now, and not ever. So maybe I can sacrifice a few kgs to know what I’m buying, at a reasonable price, pedals and all.”

In short:

Bike weight matters, but not as much as you think. It’s much more important that you’re getting good value for how you’ll actually use it. You’re probably not riding in a grand tour, so parting with a huge sum of cash to shave 2kg off, is probably not a winner for you.

What’s important is that your bike is sturdy and robust, able to cope with the conditions of your day-to-day riding.

At Mango Bikes, our bikes are crafted using steel and alloy, painted in-house and assembled to order, giving you the perfect combination of all-year-round comfort and reliability.

Cutting the BS wasn’t so hard now, was it?

Click here to check it out yourself

Stay Tuned for Vol2 coming soon………