A small addendum to my earlier post: I have a 1986 Splendor-Hitachi teambike, it has a 1A stem, but an alloy bolt. A real pro knows where to save weight! BTW, did anyone notice that there were so many pros riding Campy equipped bikes, with a lot of SR parts no doubt, but with the un-drilled NR brake levers? Another unsolved mystery?
Freek Faro Rotterdam Netherlands
2008/9/24 Edward Albert <ealbert01@gmail.com>
> Res Ipsa Locuitur. Again, Freek, I believe is right on. The stem did not
> hold the bars, i.e., it stunk!
> Edward Albert
> Chappaqua, New York, U.S.A.
>
> On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 6:00 PM, Freek Faro <khun.freek@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Mike Mulletts post and bold statement caught my attention, and I started
>> to look through one of my cycling books, not so much to prove Mike wrong, as
>> to gain knowledge, since the idea that pros would prefer 1A over 1R stems
>> seemed quite logical.
>> Ok, I grabbed the famous (he he he) 'Joop Zoetemelk, een sportleven in
>> woord en beeld', (ISBN 90 71956 02 4) and couldn't find one pic where a
>> TI_Raleigh team member had a 1R stem. Not only that, there's not one picture
>> where Joop has a 1R stem, not even in his Mercier days. I'll get back to
>> that. OK, so far.
>> Until I found a pic of the Rotterdam 6 day of ??? At the start line, where
>> Arie Haan (he is a football player) is holding the start gun, next to Joop
>> is Gerrie Knetemann, and he does have a 1R stem!
>> But alright, he's from Amsterdam, and they are well-known to be
>> pig-headed!
>>
>> Leafing a bit more through this book, I found another nice pic (within the
>> context of the Cinelli stems), Zoetemelk (Mercier) and Hinault (Gitane), TdF
>> 79, shoulder to shoulder in a climb, both 1A stems. Mmmm. Another pic of
>> Zoetemelk and Hinault, same 79 TdF, hey!! Hinault has a 1R stem!
>>
>> Now I know why Hinault won that Tour ...
>>
>> Freek 'just kidding' Faro
>> Rotterdam Netherlands
>>
>> 2008/9/23 Edward Albert <ealbert01@gmail.com>
>>
>> I don't know who was or was not using stems that looked to be 1Rs. But
>>> again, I will cling to my earlier assertion that those stems did not work
>>> properly and racers avoided them. They may have tried them out, but soon
>>> after they switched back.
>>> Re: Cinelli pushing to have them ridden. Of course he would have.
>>> Given
>>> the cost of sponsorship Cinelli would expect riders to use what he was
>>> selling. However, as in the case of frames and other parts I would not
>>> be
>>> at all surprised at all if the 1R you see on a pros bike was not in fact
>>> either doctored to fix the problem or doctored to look like a 1R. In the
>>> U.S. we all know about how AMF was not AMF, Huffy was not Huffy, etc,
>>> etc.
>>> I can't imagine a pro rider taking the risk of his bars slipping down in
>>> the
>>> heat of the action. Just does not make sense to me. But, of course,
>>> neither do a lot of other things.
>>> Edward Albert
>>> Chappaqua, New York, U.S.A.
>>>
>>> On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 4:16 PM, Tom Dalton <tom_s_dalton@yahoo.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> > Mike,
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > I realize that you were associated with the SBDU and that the TI
>>> Raleigh an
>>> > d Panasonic Team bikes came from that shop, but I think this sort of
>>> abso
>>> > lute statement might constitute revisionist history. I know for
>>> certain
>>> > that specific Raleigh-riding Panasonic team members used 1-R stems duri
>>> > ng at least parts of the 1984 season. Yes, it is interesting that Post
>>> > 's boys generally steered clear of the 1-R's, and we can add to this
>>> fact
>>> > that many non-Raleigh pros also avoided those stems. Certainly the
>>> Rale
>>> > igh-equipped pros were not the only ones to avoid the 1-R, and there
>>> were p
>>> > lenty of 1-As in use across the various teams (though I recall
>>> Guimard's gu
>>> > ys all using 1-Rs at this time).
>>> >
>>> > Rather than making inaccurate blanket statements, I think it is at
>>> least as
>>> > interesting to note that while the Raleigh riders largely avoided the
>>> 1-Rs
>>> > , there were exceptions to the rule, and that these exceptions seemed t
>>> > o NOT be seen during the cobbled races of the early season, but rather
>>> were
>>> > seen later in the season and particularly on the TT bikes (back before
>>> the
>>> > low-pro bikes). One has to wonder what would motivate anyone to make
>>> th
>>> > e exception rather than just using the 1-A since it worked well and was
>>> the
>>> > choice of most of the riders most of the time. Why would Panasonic
>>> have
>>> > used 1-Rs at all? Might Cinelli have pushed the team to at least use
>>> th
>>> > e 1-R when and where possible to get the top model some exposure?
>>> Sure,
>>> > it was already a well known part by the 1980s, but perhaps Cinelli
>>> wanted t
>>> > o promote it since it was a more expensive part, and getting teams to
>>> use i
>>> > t would help downplay its well desreved reputation as troublesome.
>>> Surely
>>> > Phil Anderson didn't insist on a 1-R because he thought it looked
>>> cool, or
>>> > believed it to be "faster," so why would it be on his TT bike in the
>>> 1984
>>> > Tour, for example?
>>> >
>>> > Maybe I've misundertsood you and what you are really talking about is t
>>> > he TI Raleigh Team riders before the Panasonic takeover. I don't recal
>>> > l those bikes exclusively having 1-As, but maybe that was the case.
>>> > However, you refered to Raleigh Riders of the Post era, and I don't th
>>> > ink that Post left the team at the time of the Panasonic takeover,
>>> since he
>>> > brought them in as a sponsor, and they were certainly still riding
>>> Raleigh
>>> > s.
>>> >
>>> > By the way, and I've asked you this before with no response, do you
>>> know an
>>> > ything about the following items on the 1984 Panasonic team bikes:
>>> Brand
>>> > s and models of tires, freewheels, chains, or spokes? Any info on tho
>>> > se parts would be most welcome.
>>> >
>>> > Tom Dalton
>>> > Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Mike Mullet wrote:
>>> > Just for the record, no pro Raleigh rider of the famous Peter Post era
>>> ever
>>> > fitted a 1R stem 1A was the order of the day, 1R stem clamping was
>>> just no
>>> > t positive enough.
>>> >
>>> > Mike (ex Ilkeston) Mullett
>>> > Reading
>>> > UK
>>> >
>>> > =0A=0A=0A