Touring bikes - light & sporty: 6 lightweight bikes under 13 kilos on test
Timo Dillenberger
· 24.12.2023
In this article, we use so-called affiliate links. With every purchase through these links, we receive a commission from the merchant. All relevant referral links are marked with . Learn more.
These are the 6 lightweight bikes from the test
The lightest fully functional bike ever built, including gears, brakes and pedals, weighed less than three kilos. It was handcrafted over many years with many sinfully rare special components and was virtually priceless. The suitability of such an extreme bike for everyday use may be questioned, but the riding performance must have been gigantic. Weight, or rather mass, is inert, in every direction of movement and especially when it rotates around an axis. That's why the claim that a two-kilo lighter bike has no measurable advantage at all for a strong rider of 85 kilos is not true at all, even in our own experience.
Lightness feels good on a bike, whether with or without a motor. A pedelec may accelerate better with full motor power than a slimmed-down sporty bike without a motor, but accelerating is just one of many manoeuvres on a bike. Quick changes of direction, heavy braking, hopping up the kerb with the front wheel, tight slaloms around barriers, ambitious, long climbs or even just carrying it up the stairs or putting it in the back of the estate car: The e-motor can't help anywhere, on the contrary, it is literally a burden. This is not a plea against pedelecs, but one in favour of the lightweight bikes from our test here.
The wheel is an inert mass - with every acceleration, braking and steering movement, more energy has to be expended for every gram. - Timo Dillenberger, MYBIKE editor
The test field of lightweight bikes
Twenty years ago, you would have been asked to test sports bikes or fitness bikes, colloquially known as racing bikes with straight handlebars and some traffic equipment. Today, manufacturers no longer make it that easy for themselves. Although - in some cases even easier, because many have bridged the gap between Road bike or gravel bike and trekking bikes. Putting together the test field has rarely been so time-consuming.
Obviously, pedelecs and gravel bikes have been nibbling away at the bike sector from both sides, and it was no longer profitable for everyone. Technically, it is also no longer so easy to define the genre, so we have limited ourselves to the key points that were important to us: a flat bar, i.e. an almost straight handlebar tube, tyres wider than 32 mm to put all-round qualities before pure speed, and very important: a weight of less than 13 kilos.
The colourful mix of frames, drive components, geometries and riding positions shows that the super-light touring bikes, as we once called the test pool internally, are not a clearly defined bike class. From "misappropriated" gravel bike frames to specifically developed framesets to technically extremely well-made trekking bike variants, everything was included even in the compact field of lightweight bikes.
The drivetrains also ranged from GRX groupsets with a single chainring and super-wide spread cassette to complete 2x11-speed road bike groupsets with gear levers specially designed for the flatbar, and even a triple drivetrain.
In contrast to the gravel test, the choice of tyres is somewhat narrower, 35 to 40 mm wide and only slightly profiled - that seems to be the consensus between off-road qualities, sporty, easy rolling and, last but not least, weight! The great thing is that thanks to this fine mix of sporty and comfortable characteristics, the six lightweight wheels alone cover quite a range. Cycling to work, working on your personal fitness, going on cycling holidays or bikepacking, strolling through the city, doing short laps through the countryside: Each has its strengths, but no real weaknesses, which made us wonder even more why this type of bike is not much more in the focus of potential customers.
Dynamism through weight loss
The huge advantage of the lightweight bikes lies in their dynamism, which in turn benefits almost exclusively from the weight of the bikes and their components, which otherwise only gravel and racing bikes can match in the affordable segment. However, their handlebars are not everyone's cup of tea; the handlebar width of around 40 centimetres sometimes gives a feeling of little control.
A little digression: the narrower the handlebars or the grip on the handlebars, the more you steer with your body weight and its displacement, whereas if your hand position is significantly wider than your shoulders, you tend to control the front wheel and direction by turning and fixing the handlebars with your hands.
There is no better or worse, narrow handlebars are more suited to grippy and flat trails and high speeds - keyword: air resistance -, the wide position has advantages on rough surfaces and when pedalling. The lightweight bikes in the test had handlebar widths of 61.2 cm for the Koga Colmaro up to 71.3 cm for Ghost Urban Ascetic on. Talking about "too wide" here could trigger a dispute between bicycle philosophies, besides, shortening an aluminium handlebar is hardly any effort at all, for us at least a narrower handlebar is more suitable for sporty use and the narrowness of a city.
There are also biomechanical reasons for this, because with a very wide hand position, the wrist bends strongly inwards, the load on the grip moves to the outer area, which is an acceptable condition for bikes for hard off-road use, but not for road bikes, which are also used for long bike tours. Please be sure to discuss this when buying! Sportiness is the strength of lightweight bikes like those in the test. Fast acceleration, dynamic tight bends, energy-saving riding, lots of control and safety on different surfaces, but no hard off-road use.
Where is weight saved on lightweight bikes?
The inertia and dynamics of a bike always depend on the components installed and the positioning of the heaviest component, the rider. Different combinations therefore sometimes resulted in different riding impressions in the test, although the overall weight was quite similar. Low frame weight is not the only reason for dynamic cornering, just as the wheel weights are not the only reason for good acceleration. Incidentally, the weights of the lightweight bikes are under ten kilos, which is on a par with the weight of good racing bikes in the days of Ulrich, Zabel and co.
Material development has made real quantum leaps in recent years, not only in the area of carbon, but also with aluminium tubes. In terms of stiffness and load capacity, new spheres have also been reached. The stiffness-to-weight ratio¹ of the current test bikes is unbelievable.
So if you've never had the pleasure of riding a 9- or 10-kilo bike with a water bottle, lights and mudguards, you should definitely try it! The fun of cycling increases exponentially with every ounce of effort you save if you don't have to make any other compromises!
Invaluable in everyday life: carrying into the home, lifting onto the car or travelling by train is so much easier ... with such a lightweight. - Robin, test driver
Removable components of the 6 lightweight wheels
Pockets and straps
Small transport(s) needed? SKS has a quick, clean solution for this: The racks from the Infinity series are fixed to almost any possible metal rear triangle using a Torx spanner to simultaneously fix the tensioning strap in the mount and operate the tensioning mechanism.
The carrier then has to be aligned with the bike once. It then takes three minutes to attach and is super-stable for up to 12 kilos. A ratchet would make tightening even more convenient. The optional, click-in top bag is too small for shopping, but great for short trips or the journey to work because it is theft-proof, expandable, removable and rainproof. SKS Infinity Universal MIK & Topbag 109.99 and 99.99 euros RRP.
Lighting
For over 10 years, battery-powered lights on bikes have been a legal replacement for dynamo lights if they have a test number (with a serpentine line). The set on the test bike tops the StVZO requirements with a display that shows the light level and battery status of both lights, the necessary radio connection is also used for synchronised switching on and off, cool.
The front cone is cleverly centred in front of the bike for fast rides, with less ambient lighting. Important: The front light must not be mounted higher than 1.20 metres and must not be movable, i.e. headlamps are not permitted due to the risk of glare. Alignment is also important on the handlebars; the top edge of the light cone must not be more than just below horizontal. Sigma Aura 100 / Blaze link in a set 109,95 Euro RRP.
Mudguards
If you rely on your bike, you also have to ride in dirty weather, but athletes like to do without mudguards for the clean look and weight. Currently the smartest solution for both: the Raceblades from SKS, as seen on the Koga. Once fitted to the bike, they can be attached to the frame and fork in 20 seconds with two rubber loops each and removed again in 10 seconds.
They are available in various designs, lengths, widths and paint finishes up to a tyre width of 32 mm (35 mm is also possible); for thicker tyres, the Speedrocker model, which is slightly more complex to fit, is required. Attention: Raceblades and Infinity are not compatible. SKS Raceblades / Speed rocker 39.99 and 49.99 euros RRP.
¹ Stiffness-to-weight: ratio of frame weight to torsional rigidity
