Originally Posted by
rosefarts
The huge advantage of going full weight weenie is mental. Seems irrelevant but it totally matters.
It’s the same thing as a fresh new haircut gives you more confidence or how you can ride faster on your birthday. It shouldn’t matter but it does.
When we plug weights into a calculator, that’s not the whole picture. The guy who picks up his bike and it feels like it’s made from pixie dust gets that extra edge. It’s real.
Whether that “feelin fancy” threshold is for a 1600, 1100, or 750g wheelset is up to the person.
We’re organic and emotional lumps of meat rolling around. Not machines. Hard to quantify but we can’t ignore the effect either.
I agree, but it only matters if you believe there is a real significant advantage. The huge advantage of not going full weight weenie is that you can choose components based more on strength, reliability, practicality and cost.
The mental side is also okay once you realise that a few hundred grams doesn’t really make or break your performance. If you do get dropped from your group ride it isn’t because you didn’t invest in those ultra-lightweight wheels!
The psychology can work both ways depending on your mindset. If you believe that you need to save every gram of weight to be competitive then you can soon get obsessive about it and paranoid if you think someone else has a slightly lighter bike.