There seems be a consensus developing that the stem is Milremo, just with a very unusual font for the Milremo name. Since most Milremo stuff was ma de in France for sale by Ron Kitching in UK, that would explain a French st em on a British bike. I don't think I've seen another Milremo part with the French accent on the e, but I speculated maybe Ron Kitching bought a ba tch from a French supplier he hadn't used before and neglected to specify t he font for the Milremo name.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
From: Fred Rednor <fred_rednor@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [CR]Mystery (french?) stem for identification ... To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Date: Wednesday, September 24, 2008, 6:58 PM
Don,
I have a stem that appears identical to thise one, except mine bears the th e old style, rhombus shaped MAVIC insignia. This makes me wonder whether
MAVIC actually made their own stems, or if they were made for them by someo ne like Balleri? Then again, I also have an Italian made stem, in French d imensions, that looks close to this stem. That stem was made by Fiamme.
So my suspicion is that this stem is merely a "rebranded" piece, actually m ade by... well, by some famous manufacturer who must remain nameless. Inte restingly, the auction says it was taken off of a Carlton, in which case it _should_ have a diameter of 22.2mm (as opposed to the sta ndard French diameter of 22mm), which made me wonder whether the engraving
is a badly done version of "Milremo"?
Could it be that, even though Milremo was a sort of off-brand, it had devel oped enough caché in the UK that someone would place a slight variation o f that name on their own stems, hoping to fool the consumer?
Fred Rednor - Arlington, Virginai (USA)
> http://ebay.com/
>
> For future reference (after the auction is gone), it looks
> like a
> cinelli 1-A stem with 3 wide flutes ending in semicircles -
> down the
> sides and top, and says something like 'Gilbema' or
> 'Cilbiema' on the head/front.
>
> I'm guessing it's french only because of the accent
> on the 'e' in the
> spelling on the stem. Quite likely, the brand may have
> died because
> their logo was too hard to decipher !! Can you imagine
> walking into a
> bikeshop and saying, "Sir, sell me another
> <mumble>, please!" :-) :-)
>
> If this is from a newly discovered ancient parts-maker,
> should we try to host these photos on the CR Website ?