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Comment by kenned3 | Hacker News Reader

Whenever i see things like this, i immediatly think "Audiophile". you know, the $238 "Directionally balanced" Ethernet cables, or the "low oxygen" copper.

Once people take their hobby too far, you will end up with things like this.

For $2K you can buy our (exotic and unnecessarily expensive metal) chain, which reduces friction to 0 and lasts forever.

I ride a fair amount (150-200KM a week in the summers) and am always surprized to see everything on a bike is measured in grams, except the biggest impact, the rider itself?

Sure i shaved 4g on my $400 waterbottle holder.... but when i weight 80KG.. and have another 2kg of water with me, does that 4g really matter?

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This is more like "random concept car" / F1 than audiophilia.

The idea here, if it is sound and measures well, is basically only useful to track racers (because they race single-speed bicycles). Current chains are extremely efficient, and mostly compatible at the same nominal width (expressed as 10-speed, 11-speed, 12-speed). And they are very cheap. People do spend absurd money shaving grams on bikes, but this product is not really in that space. It requires an IGH or a single-speed and isn't compatible with any other high-end drivetrain components on the market. That's a non-starter even for the people spending $15k on a bicycle.

Here's a better "audiophile" example in vogue in cycling at the moment: ceramic bearings. These cost a lot more than high-quality steel bearings and quickly become less efficient than steel ones because the hard ceramic bearing destroys the softer steel races.

It can also have industrial applications if their claims are true. That's a bigger market than a single bicycling niche.

It’s not odd for a professional rider to optimize to that level, though.

The article spent most of the words focused on high-performance racing.

>Sure i shaved 4g on my $400 waterbottle holder.... but when i weight 80KG.. and have another 2kg of water with me, does that 4g really matter?

Plus don't cycling competitions set a minimum bike weight anyways?

It requires less effort to buy a $400 waterbottle holder than to change your diet to loose a couple of kilos.

And you can show off gear, you can't show off weight loss.

Not being overweight is nowadays a prime status marker, so you can absolutely show it off! Once you start shaving off 4g at a time, it's probably time to switch to gear though.

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