Re: [CR]How do smart people fit a handlebar into a stem?

(Example: Events:Cirque du Cyclisme:2002)

Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 17:00:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jerome & Elizabeth Moos <jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: [CR]How do smart people fit a handlebar into a stem?
To: sachshm@cox.net, theonetrueBob@webtv.net, classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
In-Reply-To: <44F622D7.5070500@cox.net>


Hell of a good question, Harvey. As you imply, probably someone invented such a stem in 1897 or something like that, but I agree it is amazing it didn't become popular for almost a century. Maybe wrapping and unwrapping bars and trying to install them with scratching is a sort of religious ritual to test our worthiness. To paraphrase "Dune", God created stems to test the faithfull.

Regards,

Jerry Moos Big Spring, TX

Harvey M Sachs <sachshm@cox.net> wrote: Bob Hanson started a long thread on HOW to mate up a vintage bar and stem... My question is a bit more conceptual, and probably unanswerable: Howcum it took almost century of mass-producing bikes and selling them through dealers before the front-loading stem became popular? Howcum so many dealers had to mess around with untaping and retaping bars to get the right fit for a willing customer, and fretting about whether they could possibly recover the costs of mechanic time? I'm not going to review the Data Book or do a patent search, because the question isn't who did what when, but why it didn't become the "standard" way of doing business decades ago.

Just think, the Cinelli Mod 2-10 or 2-20, with respectively 10 or 20 degrees of rise... Why, GB might still be in the bike business. Sturmey-Archer could have innovated its way out of the hub gear hole. Pivo could have recovered from the "Death Stem." :-)

harvey sachs mcLean VA (90% of my bikes don't have "front loading" stems of any kind, but my KOF Weigle does. Quill adapter, not unmentionable off-topic headset variety)

######################### Bob Hanson asked: Okay, I confess, I'm baffled. How do you clever and experienced folks properly fit a handlebar into a quill stem?

I'm referring to various early alloy stems, such as a GB long spearpoint "Hiduminium" or an Ambrosio "Champion", as well as countless others on which the clamp area is the same width all around. It is possible to fit these onto a deep drop handlebar so long as it does not have severely squared corners at the top, but trying to squeeze one onto a Randonneur bar or a shallow drop old GB Touring bend bar leaves me feeling like the last surviving Neanderthal.

Cinelli 1A stems, 3TTT Record stems and many others solved the problem by tapering the lower part of the clamp area down to a smaller area. On AVA and other stems with open fronts and vertical bolts, they simply tapered the clamp opening toward the front. So, never a problem on any of those.

But, how did/do you finesse a completely cylindrical clamp section onto a handlebar with tighter curves or sharper angles?

Gee, just when I was feeling so superior to my cats because I'm the one with the opposable thumbs...

Proto-mechanical Primate
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA