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| The original more or less looked like a faded, oxidized version of this puppy, minus the saddle and saddlepost, which had been lost to history or a thief or Gremlins (note: not the American Motors Corporation kind) |
When the fine folks at the S.L.O. Bike Kitchen determined that a recently-donated sun-beaten, oxidized G.M.C. Denali was not worth the staff resources to revive, I decided to finally pursue an inchoate but years-long idea to make this low quality, ponderously leaden bicycle -- available at your local Big 5 for under 200U.S.D. and from your local hard-up klepto for 5U.S.D. or a sandwich -- as light as I could using only the components that came on the bike. Yup, that's a thing. And, as c any project by a person c too much time and disposable income, there are very particular rules surrounding this:
-for consumables that needed replacement (basically tubes and tires), these had to be equivalent in cost and quality to the O.E.M. spec.
-I gave myself some latitude on the touch points -- low-end clipless pedals and, though I'm being a self-sacrificing hero (think Jesus or orange-hued (except just around the eyes) narcissists who can't see beyond the front of their noses) by giving the god-awful o.e.m. saddle a go of it, I will replace it with a saddle of equivalent weight (220g) if my ass can't come to some accord with it.
What I did (and how much weight it saved, as well as occasional reference to particularly egregious amounts of time spent saving especially minimal amounts of weight):
-stripped frame paint (65g and untold -- but I'm going to tell it as 25 -- hours)
-halved size of saddle post clamp (33g (see photo below))
-removed padding from saddle, plastic bits and center ridge and set under some heavy boxes for 20 days to make my ass stop crying (145g (see photo below))
-removed bar tape (34g)
-removed kick-stand (189g)
-removed outer and inner chainrings and plastic bits (315g (see photo below))
-removed paint from rims (8g and untold (as in 12) hours)
-removed front derailleur, shifter, cable and housing (305g)
-shortened stem quill and bolt (34g)
-clipless pedals (Crank Brothers Candy) (112g)
-used 18 spokes on front wheel and had spokes shortened* (160g)
-used 27 spokes on rear wheel (18 drive-side 2-cross, 9 n.d.-s. radial) and had spokes shortened (70g)
-installed 0,9mm-thick (standard) 23mm by 622mm presta tubes (60g)
-installed 23mm by 622mm Michelin Dynamic tires front and rear (800g!)
-shortened the chain (35g)
-replaced rim strip with packing tape (30g)
-drilled out back of freewheel (2g and burned through a drill-bit!)
-drilled out brake levers (2g)
-sawed off the top 30mm of the saddle tube (19g)
-hacked off hub axle ends (20g)
-hacked off saddle post clamp ends (3g)
-reduced size of handlebar shims (50g)
-removed various reflectors and washers (75g)
-removed 35mm from saddlepost (15g)
-sawed out most of the kick-stand mount (it serves some function to brace the chainstay/b.b. junction, so I kept some of it in there) (17g)
*the spokes began to snap at 1 650km, as one bike shop, which sagaciously refused to cut the spokes for me for this very reason, foretold. I've plenty of back-ups, but when those run out, I will replace the 18 spokes c 2,0mm unswaged stainless steel spokes
-sawed off the top 30mm of the saddle tube (19g)
-hacked off hub axle ends (20g)
-hacked off saddle post clamp ends (3g)
-reduced size of handlebar shims (50g)
-removed various reflectors and washers (75g)
-removed 35mm from saddlepost (15g)
-sawed out most of the kick-stand mount (it serves some function to brace the chainstay/b.b. junction, so I kept some of it in there) (17g)
*the spokes began to snap at 1 650km, as one bike shop, which sagaciously refused to cut the spokes for me for this very reason, foretold. I've plenty of back-ups, but when those run out, I will replace the 18 spokes c 2,0mm unswaged stainless steel spokes
As yet, the bicycle has gone from 13,51kg to 10,91kg (2,60kg, or 19,2%). After the usual teething problems -- which mostly meant the olive oil convincing the chain links that they could flex again after years kinked into downward-dog and half-a-dead-bug -- the bike works well. This includes the indexed shifting, which flows smoothly even under load, and the Lee Chi brakes, which have a terrible reputation but which work very well on this bike, perhaps in part because they are stopping 11kg of bicycle + me (64kg) instead of 13,5kg of bicycle + typical U.S. male (89kg)?! <11kg 12t="" 13="" 30km="" 3="" 5="" 6="" 75="" 79="" a="" allow="" almost="" and="" anything="" at="" be="" bike="" bogs="" climbs="" current="" despite="" does="" down="" even="" for="" freewheel="" gear="" gearing="" give="" gradient.="" h="" has="" heft="" highest="" hit="" i="" impossible="" instantly="" instead="" is="" it="" kg=")" little="" long="" look="" low="" m="" may="" me="" meters="" min.="" momentum="" more="" my="" nbsp="" nonetheless="" not="" notice="" of="" on="" only="" over="" p="" particularly="" proven="" rather="" reasonable="" regular="" rev.="" rides.="" slower="" so="" steed="" t="" take="" than="" the="" to="" twice="" unfavorable="" very="" weight="" well="" when="" which="" with="" would="">
Other modifications to come:
-extensively drill out rear derailleur
Possible modifications to come:
-there is a flat-bar version of the Denali, which I prefer; given that the current handlebar weighs over 750g (!), even a steel shot-gun bar would save a good 500g, cheap cross-top levers would save a further 60g and shorter housings and cables'd save around 20g
-though I think it breaks too far from the spirit of the build, it would be tempting to put a SunRace friction thumb shifter on the flat bar, which would save 60g and be more functional than the current grip shifter, which, because it is index-only, limits the bike to 7-speed freewheels
-strip fork paint and cut out rack mounts; this would not save any significant weight since the fork'd need to be re-painted (since it's steel), though perhaps a thin clear-coat would be lighter than the current paint
crap wears out, and cheap crap wears out fast:
-the Michelin Dynamic is an inexpensive and light wire-bead tire; by the "cheap, light, durable: pick two" axiom, durability has to be the loser c the Dynamic, and so it was. The rear started showing threads at 1 900km and was toast by 2 300km; I managed to get to nearly 2 700km before the casing started to deform. To cut down on environmental impact, I replaced it with a used tire from the Bike Kitchen, in this case a 230g (not even close the advertised weight of 165g!) Bontrager Race X-Lite, which was expensive (when new) and, despite the false advertising, fairly light (50g lighter than the Dynamic).
-the 13t on the freewheel started skipping under pressure after only 1 800km. It steadily worsened, of course, making it nearly unusable by 2 500km. Then the 15t started skipping. Cheap steel, I guess. I searched for a reasonably priced used 12t - 28t 7-speed freewheel on eBay that had replaceable cogs, but had no luck. Eventually and a bit desperately, I took the freewheel that was mounted on my Volunteer of the Year award -- a Sachs Maillard LY94 that happened to be a 13t - 28t 7-speed -- and put it on the Denali. This freewheel has the huge advantage of having replaceable cogs, though the cogs are getting very hard to find.
-the rear hub races are also, apparently, made out of very cheap stuff because, right around 5 000km, the drive-side race essentially evaporated (see photo). After this bit of catastrophe, which involved a steamed (as in my mood) 3km walk home, I determined to get a better-quality (though still cheap) hub to replace it. Guilt got the better of me (because a better quality hub would also be around 150g lighter, which felt like cheating) when I was sifting through the used hubs at the Bike Kitchen, though, so I looked around for something of equivalent crap-level, which I found in their whole-wheel section. I asked if I could extract the hub from the wheel which, because the staff is familiar c my project, got a "whatever floats your boat" response. So now I have a HungSen steel 3-piece loose-ball-cup-and-cone rear piece-of-crap hub that is nearly identical to the old one in weight and the aforementioned-crap-level. After re-wiring my brain to be able to re-piece-together the rather complex lacing pattern, the only thing that required adjustment was the "high" limit screw. Which I couldn't do because that'd somehow unthreaded itself and abandoned ship in the last few hundred km of riding. My brother let me cannibalize one of his derailleurs, though, so, once that was
crap wears out, and cheap crap wears out fast:
-the Michelin Dynamic is an inexpensive and light wire-bead tire; by the "cheap, light, durable: pick two" axiom, durability has to be the loser c the Dynamic, and so it was. The rear started showing threads at 1 900km and was toast by 2 300km; I managed to get to nearly 2 700km before the casing started to deform. To cut down on environmental impact, I replaced it with a used tire from the Bike Kitchen, in this case a 230g (not even close the advertised weight of 165g!) Bontrager Race X-Lite, which was expensive (when new) and, despite the false advertising, fairly light (50g lighter than the Dynamic).
-the 13t on the freewheel started skipping under pressure after only 1 800km. It steadily worsened, of course, making it nearly unusable by 2 500km. Then the 15t started skipping. Cheap steel, I guess. I searched for a reasonably priced used 12t - 28t 7-speed freewheel on eBay that had replaceable cogs, but had no luck. Eventually and a bit desperately, I took the freewheel that was mounted on my Volunteer of the Year award -- a Sachs Maillard LY94 that happened to be a 13t - 28t 7-speed -- and put it on the Denali. This freewheel has the huge advantage of having replaceable cogs, though the cogs are getting very hard to find.
Yup, it's about as uncomfortable as it looks, but relieving the Atlas Mountain running down the spine of it sure helped, and it saved 10g more! =)
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| With some significant hacksaw time, the clamp itself went from 55g to 22g, the saddlepost lost 15g (35mm-worth of 'post) and, after lopping off the top 30mm of the saddle tube, the bike lost another 19g |
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| Hacking off the axle ends from both hubs saved another 20g and, not that I give a crap, but must make the system more aerodynamic, too! |
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| The prominent teeth on the 38t are not narrow-wide, of course, but they hold the chain well in all gears; I tried life sans bottom bracket bolts to save 35g, but the crank will not hold! |
