Bike weight - petebachant/petebachant.github.io GitHub Wiki

The weight difference between a steel and carbon frame is about 2.5 lbs. The Niner RLT-9 steel frameset (56 cm) is 2.78 kg and the CFR-505 (size unknown) is 1.66 kg. The 56 cm Niner RLT-9 RDO is 1.65 kg, so that's comparable.

The weight difference between a steel and carbon frame up a steep 5000 ft climb for a 150 lb rider riding at 240 watts is about 1.5 minutes or 4 watts. Unless racing, it doesn't seem like that's worth the money, especially if you could safely lose that much body weight in 2--3 weeks.

Calculator: http://www.u.arizona.edu/~sandiway/bike/climb.html

Can also simply assume 5000 ft climbed in 1.5 hours and calculate the power required to gain the potential energy associated with 2.5 lbs of weight.

Now, for a titanium frame, the weight is somewhere in between the two. Not worth going Ti over steel for weight, but perhaps comfort.

Also note a 24 oz bottle of water is about 1.5 lbs.

Over a 90 second climb, 2.5 lbs is worth about 6 watts or 1 second.