RE:[CR]How do smart people fit...now front loading stems

(Example: Framebuilders:Alex Singer)

From: "Steve Birmingham" <sbirmingham@mindspring.com>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Subject: RE:[CR]How do smart people fit...now front loading stems
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 22:28:35 -0400
In-Reply-To: <MONKEYFOODRxJkbeeso00004f58@monkeyfood.nt.phred.org>


I'd bet it was more a matter of manufacturing technology. The most time consuming part of making a stem would be the polishing, which is hard to get around, but next would be the tapping the bolt hole. Before CNC machines became commonplace, this would have taken a fair bit of time, and to tap 4 holes as most of these have would have taken quite some time without special equipment. Making matching clamp halves would also be slightly harder than just reaming the clamp area in a casting or forging.

But around the mid 80's, CNC got to be more common and cheaper, and it's almost universal today. And all that machining is quick and easy, making the manufacture of complex parts more affordable.

Steve Birmingham Lowell,MA USA

Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 19:44:23 -0400 From: Harvey M Sachs <sachshm@cox.net> Subject: [CR]How do smart people fit a handlebar into a stem?

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)