I’ve never seen anything like it before. Surely the stem can’t be tightened enough to stop the bars slipping?
by Which_Bar_9457
I’ve never seen anything like it before. Surely the stem can’t be tightened enough to stop the bars slipping?
by Which_Bar_9457
12 Comments
Woah, seriously dodgy. As you say, how does this wedge in and tighten precisely with the bars? Looks like a seatbolt fitting hanger.
there usually is some sort of gap there, maybe 3mm
doesn’t look like a super elegant solution to me but it i could believe they put the calipers on it and it works fine
Looks like the upper head set was replaced, potentially to go thread less without replacing the threaded fork, and the steer tube didn’t have room for the cable guide spacer, that’s usually present atop the head set.
Chris King head sets are about as good as it gets, but that one looks pretty tall, to what was likely originally there.
Added: so the existing cable guide was moved since the old one didn’t fit anymore. And you are likely correct that handlebars will twist and spin in that configuration, given enough force, whatever that force might be? Who knows?
Maybe it would work if you’re running 26.0 bars in a 25.4 stem and needed to stretch it anyway
When you zoom in, it looks hand made. Like out of another part. Something like that.
Nitto made their stems, like Cinelli, to have a gap and they even had a hard rubber spacer that you could color match for the rest of your bike.
Now hard rubber is compressible, as opposed to this, but something could fit.
It looks like a seatbolt canti hanger with an angle piece in it. I’ve got the angle piece in a regular headset hanger.
There are cable hangers that will clamp onto a quill stem, and there’s definitely enough extra stem here to pull it off. This is a bit of a sketch solution
the two flat surfaces of the bolt’s portion of the clamp should be near parallel. it looks like there’s plenty (~0.015-0.025”) of clearance for that hanger in there. clamping the handlebar is not concerning.
side-loading that ~0.100”x0.375” aluminum plate when grabbing the stopping brake with any OH SHIT! forces seems a little unwise, that it will serve to be prying the clamp open at the same time doubles how unwise it seems, and that there’s plenty of space on the quill to put a nice clamp-on cable stop makes it plain stupid.
Saw this today too and it caught my eye immediately
I don’t like it, despite the way that it looks kinda cool. The brakes are going to work like crap. The end of the cable hanger is significantly in front of the direction of cable pull. Thus when you pull on the front brake lever the bars are going to lower. That distance is significant as flex increases to the cube of the span. Doubling the span will increase the flex by 8x. When combined with the fact that alloy quill stems in 1″ (with a 7/8″ or 22.2mm quill) aren’t known for their rigidity. In addition whenever you roll over a bump while braking the stem will lower, thus changing the amount of cable tension. It’s going to give an unnerving inconsistent function to the front brake while reducing power. There are cable stops that bolt onto the fork crown as well as clamping onto the vertical section of the stem (as far as I know the only option for that style of cable stop available for a 1″ quill stem is through Paul’s components and thus $$$$ – but they seem nice). I believe that there are some available made for a 1″/25.4mm clamp available but you’d need to use some shims (which should work fine) for reasonable $.
It never ends with you hipsters.
I applaud the creativity, but the clamping force of the stem bolt is highly suspect and seems to be weakened. I could be wrong, but until I see proof of someone pushing hard on the bars to demonstrate zero rotation, I will stay skeptical.
Also, the cable angle is weird. Maybe not super detrimental, but knowing that center pull cable anchors are available that attach via headset spacers, I will be withholding my approval.
As I said, super ingenious. But with real solutions that have been available for decades, I’m gonna say ”nah”