"Kerry Montgomery" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:
[email protected]...
> Hi all,
> Have been thinking about building a bike using NOS 1970s parts. Am I
taking
> an unreasonable risk, especially with the Cinelli stem? Is there a test
that
> could be done to the stem to verify that it's sound?
> Thanks much,
> Kerry
>
Here's a link to info on early Cinelli stems and bars:
http://www.43bikes.com/cinelli-bars-stems.html
The Cinelli 1A forged aluminum stems at the bottom of the web page were
great. They were designed for use with 26.4mm Cinelli bars. Ambrosio also
made bars this size. A lot of the other companies like 3TTT and Nitto made
bars that were 25.8mm or 26mm in diameter. Many lower priced bars and
stems were 25mm.
As long as there are no cracks or deep scratches in Cinelli 1A stems and
they haven't been used with bars smaller than 26.4mm there should be no
problem.
Back in the early 1970s when Cinelli and 3TTT bars and stems were scarce,
it was common practice to use these stems with undersize bars. At the time
there were no warnings against this practice.
I had a Cinelli 1A stem that I used with a 25mm bar for about 32 years. I
had the set on a number of different bikes and thought all of the warnings
I've seen recently to be exaggerations.
The bars were only 38cm wide and a few months ago I decided to switch to
wider bars with this stem. When I tried to spread the clamp it broke right
across the front. I was surprised at how easily it cracked with very
little force. I've seen clamp bolts on Cinelli and 3TTT stems strip or
break when over tightening them to fit undersize bars but never the forged
aluminum stems.
Heed the warnings about not using these 26.4mm stems with undersize bars.
Cinelli also made a 1R model shown on the link above plus the 1XA shown on
the link below. One of these models had a bad reputation for breaking. It
was probably the 1R stems.
http://www.bikepro.com/products/stems/cinelli-road.html
A later version of the 1XA, the 1XE used 26mm bars.
Chas.
