You can get away with lightweight bolts in a few places, where the load is small and doesn't involve the cyclic changes that cause fatigue: waterbottle bosses derailleur cable clamp bolts and headset tension bolts. I'll leave to your imagination the consequences of the failure of a seatposts's saddle clamp bolt. If a bolt fails in a handlebar stem, you'll be lucky to get away with a large dentist's bill for tooth repair after the stem lets go of the bar. If you replace the high-strength steel in a bolt with aluminium or titanium, the resulting bolt won't be as strong or durable. High-strength aluminium and titanium alloys are great in parts designed around their properties, but you can't just swap materials without changing the design. It's tempting to try and shed a few grams by replacing steel bolts in places like stem clamps with titanium or aluminium bolts. The best price we've found for the 220g, 25mm GP5000 is £36.99, so the Michelin Pro 4 Service Course is currently the way to go for budget gram-trimming.Īll that said, if all that matters is weight and you’re doing, say, a time trial on very clean roads, then Continental’s smooth-treaded 150g Supersonics at £40 are the lightest clinchers you can buy, but as Conti points out, they're for time trial and track racing only. When it comes to really good all-purpose tyres, it's hard to go past the Continental Grand Prix 5000. You can pick up a pair of 215g, 25mm Michelin Pro 4 Service Course for just £54.99, so compared to those original equipment tyres you're saving around 270g. In general lighter tyres also roll faster, giving an extra performance boost for your money. Wire-beaded tyres commonly fitted as original equipment on bikes, like the Schwalbe Lugano, Vittoria Zaffiro, Specialized Espoir Sport and Bontrager R1 typically weigh 340-370g each in 25mm width, so there's a lot of scope for trimming weight there.

Delta bicycle light