Check out Scott’s sub-6kg Addict from 2008

Scott has this week launched its new Addict RC road bike with full builds weighing as little as a claimed 5.9kg, and we’ve not seen weights that low from the brand since the first Addict was launched for the 2008 model year, so let the screen go all swirly for a moment as we journey back through time to see how things were when road.cc was a little baby website and the world banking system was having a bit of a moment.

Main image: daniel dvc on Flickr Creative Commons, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

> Scott unveils new 5.9kg Addict RC road bike... the same weight as the 2008 version

Scott actually announced that the first Addict was on the way in 2007, before road.cc even existed, and there was immediately a huge focus on its weight – or, more precisely, the lack of weight.

The original Scott Addict, which featured an integrated seatpost, had a frame weight of just 790g. That would still be impressive today, although not as lightweight as some; Scott claims a frame weight of just 640g for the new 2025 Scott Addict RC in its lighter HMX-SL version (size medium), for example. Bear in mind that before the launch of the Addict, the lightest version of Scott’s existing CR1 road bike had an 880g frame – still very light for the time, but not in the same league,

How did Scott end up with a frame that was so lightweight for the time? That Addict used what Scott called its Integrated Molding Process (IMP)… and no, that's not how we would spell moulding either. This, Scott reckoned, allowed its engineers to create multiple tubes in a single step while managing the thickness and characteristics of the layers in different areas.

Although carbon monocoque bike frames had existed for years, most early carbon-fibre frames were made from preformed tubes that were then joined – either tube-to tube or slotting into lugs. Some are still made this way, but the Addict was made with fewer joints. This meant that less material needed to be added, keeping the weight down.

The head tube, top tube and down tube were all created as a single piece. That might not sound particularly radical now but don’t forget that carbon fibre hadn’t taken over the bike industry back then to the degree it has today. Carbon components, including frames, were certainly part of the scene, particularly in high-level road racing, but the technology wasn’t as developed back then.

Scott was big on optimising carbon fibre so that less of it could be used, resulting in a lighter overall structure. For example, it spent a lot of time and effort working on tube shapes because those shapes helped manage the loads at the junctions. It also used carbon for just about everything, including the dropouts, cable stops, and even the front derailleur mount.

That first Addict was astonishingly fast, Scott managing to retain a high level of frame stiffness despite the low weight. The acceleration and climbing were as stunning as you'd imagine while descents were perfectly controlled too (although if you went for a model with carbon wheels, the rim brakes could sometimes be a little unpredictable). 

Why has it taken so long for Scott to produce another sub-6kg Addict? Keep in mind that there has been limited incentive for brands to reduce the weight of road race bikes over the past couple of decades because they’re all perfectly capable of producing models as light as the UCI’s 6.8kg minimum weight limit for racing (introduced in 2000).

Even if there had been the motive to reduce weights, the use of disc brakes on the road came along and moved things in the opposite direction for a while. It has only really been since Specialized released its Aethos with a claimed frame weight of 588g back in 2020 that weight reduction has been back in the big time. That model has been raced at a professional level, but only when built up with components selected to take the overall bike weight above the minimum permitted.

> Here’s why the Specialized Aethos non-race bike is being raced in the Tour de France 

The Scott Addict was already a renowned bike, but if anyone had missed it before, it came to even more prominence in 2009 when it was ridden by Team Columbia–High Road (which became Team Columbia-HTC), including a certain Manx rider called Mark Cavendish. Even by his own standards, Cav had a fabulous year in 2009, winning Milan-San Remo and three stages of the Giro d’Italia (amongst other races) before going to the Tour de France and bagging a ridiculous six stage victories.

The Scott Addict has changed a lot over the years – with new carbon fibre, internal routing, and disc brakes, for instance – but that first version set the tone for everything it has become since. Right, let's get back to 2024.

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