Haven't ever owned a threadless stem, old or new. Can someone who actually works on new stuff confirm or refute my impression that one has to use spacers to adjust stem height? Did the old threadless stems have any provision for height adjustment? To me it is ridiculous to design a component that prevents fitting the bike to the rider. A threadless stem might be OK on a custom Singer or Herse, where the bike and stem were produced to fit the owner, but on massed produced bikes, height adjustment is critical. The other problem is that many stems now come no shorter than 100mm, probably because small frames with short top tubes are in fashion. But if you like to ride larger frames with less exposed seatpost, or don't like a stretched out riding position, or happen to be a typical female with a shorter torso to leg length ratio than a typical male, 100mm doesn't work. Stems are just another example of the industry selling us what is easiest and most profitable for them to make and to hell with what we want or need. Or the ad boys will try to convince us to want whatever they make. Thank God for a few companies like Georgina Terry that make short stems for women and several other products actually designed to meet customer needs.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Huthornton@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 20/04/01 16:23:04 GMT Daylight Time, bikevint@tiac.net
> writes:
>
> > While threadless headsets seem ugly and less functional, they do have the
> > advantage of being really quick to change. Some can be flipped around for
> > very significant changes in rise in only a moment. Many riders cannot find
> > that their optimal position might change over a season - and threadless
> > stems offer much easier changes in reach than threaded ones provide.
> > Again, the threadless ahead type stem is nothing new - a varient of that
> > can be seen on ebay right now - a Daudon ahead type stem that works on
> > 1950's French bikes!
> >
>
> My 1908 BSA road/path effectively has an aheadset -- the only difference is
> that a threaded cap screws down on top of the stem which clamps to a
> threadless portion of the steerer. I believe that this design was in
> production at least 5 years earlier.
>
> Hugh Thornton