Whether you simply want to know how much mountain bikes weigh out of mere curiosity or you are trying to decide if the mountain bike you own is too light or too heavy, the weight of a mountain bike can still be an interesting topic to think about.
Mountain bikes tend to weigh between 20-45 pounds, though most fall in the 25-35 pound range. This is much heavier than many road bikes which tend to weigh between 12-28 pounds at most, but the reason for this is that mountain bikes must be durable enough to handle the different terrains, unlike road bikes.
This weight of a mountain bike depends on a lot of different factors, since each individual part of the bike can weigh either less or more depending on its size and what it is made of. A lot of these features are interchangeable ones, meaning that you can easily switch them out to make your mountain bike lighter without having to buy a whole new bike.
Does The Weight Of A Mountain Bike Really Matter?
The answer here is actually both yes and no. Some of this depends of what you are trying to accomplish with a lighter or heavier bike. While most racers who are looking for speed try to cut off every spare gram of weight that they can, for noobs to the mountain biking arena this actually won’t make much of a difference at all.
Ranges of Mountain Bike Weights
All in all, an experienced rider on a heavier mountain bike can still usually beat a less experienced rider on a lighter weight bike. This is even true if the experienced rider weighs more themselves, even sometimes to the point that they look like they are not very physically fit, on top of having a heavier bike.
That being said, sometimes some of the features that make you a faster biker might be the heavier ones. If bumpy spots in a trail slow you down on a rigid bike, for example, then adding the extra weight of a front suspension to make you ride a little smoother might actually help you to go faster even though this part will weigh more.
True speed takes years of practice as you work on muscles, and on muscle memory, and learn how to ride the different parts of a trail. Once you have this experience, then you can start shaving weight off here and there to get even faster, but until then it is not very likely to matter a whole lot.
Many experienced mountain bikers say that your ride and how fast you can go is 20% the bike you are on and 80% the person riding it. Some go even further than that and say that it is only 10% the mountain bike and all the rest is entirely up to you.
Finally it all really boils down to the math. Is spending a couple of hundred dollars to cut down even 1,000 grams of weight really something that is worth it in terms of speed? For starters the more flat the terrain is that you are riding over the less it will really matter.
Even if you add a 35kg load to your mountain bike while on a 3 hour bikepacking trip, if you are going on flat terrain then you will only be adding somewhere around 10 minutes to your total time. On a 4 hour trip that involves steep climbing this will be more, adding up to nearly another hour of time.
But that is a lot of weight to add, so perhaps it would be easier to say that the 1,000 grams of weight might save you a whole minute and a half if you are going up steep terrain almost the whole 3 hours or a whole 10-15 seconds if the terrain is flat. Might those few seconds help you win a race? Of course. However, unless you are a serious racer and can already make it to close to first place, then taking this weight off will not be likely to matter too much.
On the other hand, training with the extra weight on your mountain bike until you get faster can help you to build up the muscles that you need for going uphill. This way when you take off the weight you will can be encouraged by how much faster you can go uphill than you could before.
How Do You Weigh Your Mountain Bike?
Whether you are just curious, or need to know this information for a reason, there are a few different ways of finding out exactly how much your mountain bike weighs. Often if you have a new bike or know the exact name of your bike you can find this information either on the manual or by looking it up online.
If you have a second hand bike, however, or do not remember this info, you still have a few other options. First of all, some bike shops have a scale of some kind that they usually don’t mind letting you set your bike up on for a moment. Should you not have a bike shop near you that has that kind of scale, you can buy a bike scale online that you hang your bike on and it will tell you exactly what your bike weighs.
Factors that effect mountain bike weights:
However, buying a bike scale can be a bit pricey just to check the weight of your mountain bike, so another option here would be to buy a luggage scale. Most luggage scales will work for bikes, and if you do any travelling then you are probably familiar with the weight limits for luggage and may have even had issues with this before. This can make getting a luggage scale a good investment which can be used for things besides measuring the weight of your bike.
Finally, as a last resort, you can always use your bathroom scale. First you will need to weigh yourself a couple of times to make sure that you know your exact weight, and then you hold your bike in your hands up off of the ground while you weigh yourself again a couple of times. All that is left after that is to subtract your weight from the weight that it showed while you were on it with your bike!
What Are The Different Things That Affect The Weight Of A Mountain Bike?
Okay, so, you have finally reached the point where you feel like you are so good at biking that the extra weight on your bike is just holding you back now. Well the first thing you will probably start thinking of is where you might cut off some of the weight from your mountain bike without affecting your ride.
Some of how much you weigh will depend on just how much/little your bike should weigh. If you are a taller or just plain heavier person, then you would be more likely to damage a bike that is too far on the lighter end of the spectrum and should get a stronger and therefore heavier bike parts.
If, on the other hand, you are a really small, lightweight person, then you would likely find a heavy bike to be too much for you, especially when going uphill. Therefore you would be much more comfortable on a mountain bike that is smaller in size and with parts that are lighter in weight.
Most of the different parts of a mountain bike can be made out of different materials. The most common of these in order from lightest to heaviest are: carbon fiber, titanium, aluminum, and steel. Aluminum and carbon fiber are perhaps the most two popular kinds with aluminum being the choice for stability and carbon fiber being the choice for lightweight.
The Weight Of The Frame
The frame of any bike is like the foundations of it. While almost all of the other parts of a bike are interchangeable, the frame is not really interchangeable unless you are going to buy a whole new bike. These frames can be made out of a variety of things, each of which will affect how much it weighs.
There are two different kinds of steel that a mountain bike frame could be made out of. The first of these is high tensile steel and the second option is chromoly steel that is most often simply referred to as chromoly. The high tensile steel is very cheap, but also extremely heavy and most mountain bikers avoid it at almost all costs.
The chromoly steel, on the other hand, is still reasonably heavy, but it is lighter than the high tensile steel and even more rigid. This also makes it more expensive than the other steel option though, which is why it is something that is still not used very often.
Aluminum is perhaps one of the most common options for mountain bikers who are looking for a reasonably durable bike that is both not too heavy as well as reasonably priced. However, aluminum can sometimes be put together too cheaply, meaning that if you are looking for durability that chromoly might be a better option.
Titanium mountain bike frames are more lightweight than aluminum can be durable, but this material sometimes can be difficult to work with and does not always weld together very well. This results not only in a much more expensive price, but it also means than the frame is more likely to bread at the joints.
Finally, perhaps the most common option for mountain bike frames is carbon fiber. Carbon fiber tends to be somewhat expensive sometimes, but is also very lightweight. This cuts down a lot on the weight, however it also makes the bike more prone to impact damage as well.
On top of the different materials that can be used to make a mountain bike frame, there are also different sizes. The main reason for these different sizes is to go with the different wheel size options, the most common of the sizes being the 29” and the 27.5” size frames, with the 26” being more suitable for particularly small riders.
The Weight Of The Saddle And The Handlebars
Both the saddle and the handlebars come in a variety of different shapes and sizes and both can be made out of any of the four main bike materials. The saddle can be larger for more comfort and padding and will then weigh more, or it can be tiny with a less amount of cushion and weigh less.
As for the handlebars, these tend to vary the most in terms of width. Narrow handlebars will of course weigh less, but these will also give you less to grip onto and it will make it harder for you to turn do to having too little leverage. Handlebars that are too narrow can also cause unnecessary strain in your wrist and arms up into your shoulders and back. This can also make you more likely to injure your wrists should you crash.
Wider handlebars will weigh more but will feel more natural and will give you more leverage when turning. They also help by reducing the strain on your shoulders and giving you more space in between your arms for you to take bigger breaths more easily.
However, there is such a thing as handlebars being too wide. In this case you can save weight and money by cutting them if they are two wide. It is best to do this in small increments and you should always cut the same amount off of both sides anytime you try this.
Oftentimes seats and handlebars come with a seat post bar and a handlebar bar that can adjust either up or down, but very rarely do bikers have it all the way up at its highest setting. This can be another easy place that you can cut down on the weight of your mountain bike without having to spend any money at all, especially if you already know where you like your seat and handlebars set to and if this happens to be lower down.
In order to do this you simply mark a line on each right above where they go into the frame, then you pull them out and measure and mark a second line about 4” below the other. This is usually where you can cut off the remainder of the bar at and doing this can save you a bit of weight. However, you should never do this if you are still growing taller or if for any other reason you might later need to raise either your handlebar or seat since you will then be unable to do so and cutting this off is irreversible.
The Weight Of The Wheels And Tires
The wheels are one of the most important parts of a bike and are quite literally the part that gets the most wear and tear. There are many different factors that affect the weight of a wheel, the first one of which is size. A 29” wheel, for example, is naturally going to weigh more than a 26” wheel will.
There are also some variations on the width of the different sizes as well. Wider tires will weigh more but will also have better grip and traction to them which can be something that you may need if you are going to be biking in the snow or over similar terrain. However, for regular use these “fat” tires are not usually needed.
The next part that affects the weight is what the wheel is made off. Aluminum and steel are two of the more common things, with climbing carbon rims being the lightest and also a fairly common option. However, you have to be careful when choosing the size and the material for the frame of your wheel, since there are a few problems that can result if you make the wrong choice.
If you pick a wheel that is too big for you, not only will it add unnecessary weight but it will also make you higher up off of the ground. This can make it more difficult to keep your balance and could be dangerous on some parts of the trail.
If, on the other hand, your wheel is too light for you the result may be the “taco effect” when you land at the end of a jump. The taco effect, like the name implies, is where your tire literally folds like a taco when you land on it too hard, and this is a clear sign that your tire was not sturdy enough for your weight.
Downhill racers often do 10’ jumps onto their tires without their tires bending at all, but this is because they make sure that they have the right tires. While carbon frames might be great and lightweight for going uphill, they are not as strong as the other options and therefore are less equipped to handle landing at the end of a big jump.
While the wheels certainly have their own weight, so do the tires that you put on them. Tubeless tires can be much lighter than their tubed counterparts and are generally the way to go anyway, so there is no reason why any mountain biker could not have these on their mountain bike.
The Weight Of The Suspensions
There are three main kinds of suspension for mountain bikes: rigid which is where there is no suspension at all, hardtail which is where there is a fork suspension on the front tire only, and full or dual suspensions which is where both of the wheels have suspensions on them.
Each suspension you add will also add to the weight of the mountain bike, just how much weight this is will depend on the specific kind of suspension used as well as what it is made of and how it works. Other than simple comfort, the main purpose of suspension bikes is to help you to have better traction by allowing your tires to be able to grip the ground better due to less bouncing up and down in the bumpy areas of a trail.
Even though a full suspension mountain bike does weigh more, making it towards the higher end of the weight range for mountain bikes, this added traction can be useful when you are out on the trail and definitely adds to your comfort. However, the weight can still affect you speed, making you somewhat slower.
For this reason most mountain bikers prefer going with the hardtail option. Going this route gives the front tire the suspension, and therefore the added grip, that it needs without weighing nearly as much as the full suspension option. This makes front suspension only mountain bikes slightly faster than mountain bikes that have both the front and rear suspensions, especially when you are biking uphill.
If you are going to be on level ground without any really bumpy patches of trail, then the suspensions will not matter much to your ride and you can save on the weight without them. On the other hand, if you will be doing a lot of downhill racing then it will not matter how slowly you go uphill and you are far more likely to need both of the suspensions.
The Weight Of The Gearing And The Crankset Stuff
There are number of different gear setups that can have a wide range of different speeds. The main two things that affect the weight of the gears are what they are made of and how many of them there are. The more gears there are, the more it will weigh of course, with steel as usual being the heaviest type of gearing that there is.
The crankset is most often made of steel, aluminum, or carbon fiber and of late it can also come with either longer or shorter arms. To help cut back on weight, often the steel or aluminum options will be made so that they are hollow and not solid. Longer arms will of course weigh more, but these are often better for taller riders.
Since this is an area that gets a lot of weight and movement it is therefore something that needs to be at least relatively sturdy. While you can get the lightweight carbon fiber sets, these often do not last as long. This is why aluminum is the one that tends to be the most popular here.
Also, the fewer speed settings that you have on your mountain bike then the less of the various parts you will need to have on your bike for these settings. This will always help save some weight on your bike, with the lightest weight option that you can go with here being a mountain bike that has only one speed option available.
While there can be many advantages to having only one speed, most mountain bikers like to have at least a few setting. This will weigh more, but will also be able to help you go faster up steep hills if you know how to put it on the right setting.
The Weight Of The Pedals And Other Small Details
Pedals can be made out of all sorts of things but they come in two basic kinds. One kind has smaller pedals and requires you to clip have something on your shoe that literally clips onto the pedal, while the other kind has a larger pedal that does not require you to be attached to it.
Both of these options have their own list of advantages and disadvantages, but in terms of weight the smaller pedals will of course weigh less. However, this does not take into account the shoes you wear! Since you can wear any kind of shoe at all on the flat pedals – or no shoes at all if you really wanted to – then this can weigh less than having to wear the specific shoes needed to wear the strap that goes with the clipped in kind.
Finally, if you really want to get into the details, you can finish by literally lightening the nuts and bolts of your mountain bike. The way to do this is to replace the steel ones with either titanium or aluminum ones. If you decide to do this, however, you should be warned that this is only advisable to do on the parts of the bike that do not bear any important weights or have a lot of load to them.
This is because the nuts and bolts that are lighter in weight will also be more likely to fail. This can be catastrophic should the nuts or bolts that are in your handlebars or saddle for instance break at the end of a jump. I will leave the possible resulting injuries to your own imagination.
This is an a range of the ones I found.
There are many factors that affect the weight of bicycles, but this is the ones I actually found.