Originally Posted by
terrymorse
A sub-15 pound, complete road bike, made in 1980?
I would really like to see an example of that. I've read of 18-lb bikes of that era, but nothing below 15 lbs.
Andre Sabliere bikes as ridden by Sean Kelly weighed in at 5.5 kilos including saddle, pedals, toe clips and straps, two bottle cages. Wohlhauser equipped a couple teams with fair copies of the Sabliere design that weighed maybe a hundred grams more in the aluminum frame and another kilo by not having all the handmade parts de Gribaldy found for Kelly.
Eddy Merckx even earlier raced road bikes at 6.5 kilos. And they had to stand up to Eddy. Made by various builders in steel. Why would that be hard? We are talking race bikes, not extrapolating from Raleigh Pros or PX-10s. Just lots of bikes weighed under 18 pounds and those would have been available even in the 60s.
I know these bikes by virtue of having been alive when those bikes were made. Reading what moderns know of things that happened before they were born is amusing.