Is the weight of a bike commercially sensative?

[KatyMac]

I was asking a bike shop about the weight of various electric bikes and they said they wouldn't know unless the bike was ordered and then weighed

This is because the weight of bikes is commercially sensative

Which I thought was really odd!

If you were a pro race team seeking to keep training info quiet for marginal gains, perhaps.

For a normal shop, not a chance. They sound silly.

Good - that's what I thought

After buying a heavy bike my next one needs to be lighter.....much lighter and I won't be buying one (which will cost a fortune) that doesn't tell me how much it weighs

It is hard at times to find out the weight of a bike, I struggled with this when buying a non electric hybrid last year. Bike shops would mutter something about how it depends what size you buy! I mean I’d be happy if bike manufacturers just gave a weight for the medium size only.

For goodness sake - for those of us who are physically challenged the weight actually matters! You can't see a buggy company being that wishywashy can you?

Which bike is it? Can you just go on the manufactures website?

I’ve never shopped for a bike without technical info being available. Brands usually have weight on their website or in catalogues!

You'd think wouldn't you?

Well I went in asking which would be the lightest woman's electric bike they stocked and they didn't know!

Interestingly if you go on Wiggle or Evans Cycles a lot of the bikes, especially the racing bikes, where they list the specifications they have no listing for the weight.
You would think this would be one of the major selling points on a light weight racer.

Perhaps you could look up models you like online and see the technical specification and that will tell you the weight.

Maybe yes & I'll ask on the electric bike forum but it's such an odd thing to leave out

Yeah they don't publish the weights even in the tech specs. I guess its because it's all so tweak-able.

For one thing, the shipped bike won't have pedals - you might go for big metal flats or the weeniest egg beaters.

You can then change groupset and saddle and all the rest of it.

And each bike will weigh differently according to size and general sec anyway.

And given the number of weight-weenies in cycling maybe they just thought it's easier not to even go there and leave it out entirely.

I thought up to about £2k electric bikes are just off the peg (so to speak)

Well yeah largely. But there are still differences between the largest and smallest sizes, and with ebikes there may be different motors etc.

So it would already be a matrix of weights before the variables I mentioned earlier. They probably just CBA!

The weight of all the various parts of a bike is easy enough to find out. What is missing is that the bike shops don't add them all together.

Pro bikes weigh 6.8kg as this is the minimum allowed.

No idea about electric bikes, but this article gives you an idea of some of the weights

ebiketips.road.cc/content/advice/advice/why-are-electric-bikes-so-heavy-578

I was looking at the Moustache Samedi on ebike website and weight was 28.5kg. You can find weight of bikes on fullycharged.com/ebikes. It's all there.

Thanks I've not seen that website before - the step through bikes on there are the same price as mine

I won't give up thought I have found a couple this & this saving about 4 kgs