Hello!

I'm looking for a 130mm 6deg stem to put on my Cannondale EVO. Stifness is the primary concern, it would be nice if its light of course.
I have used 120mm FSA OS99 CSI (carbon) and it seems pretty stiff.
Currently I have Ritchey 4axis WCS in 130mm and its a noodle comparing to the FSA.
Has anyone tried the Ritchey C260 UD carbon?

Before you buy, take heed of these comments:

http://forums.roadbikereview.com/ritche ... 65010.html

The boltheads are soft!

Hey big thanks for the link..
Very informative and worth considering since I like to have things torqued to the max.

Why the hell they use M4 bolts while the rest of the world use M5...

Now what.. I'm back on the start...

Note, Aluminum version I'm referring to. The carbon is supposed to be stiffer.

I've been using a WCS C260 130mm for about 1 month now.

A couple of things:

1) The lower/bottom 2 bolts are a bit of a PITA the way they face backwards towards the head tube. When you have a torque wrench on it, the cables are in the way along with the bars themselves. The front bolt setup of most stems are much easier to get at obviously. But, since hopefully you won't have to keep messing with the bolts once they are set, it is really just a once/twice thing.

2) The bolts are smaller as mentioned, metal seems a bit soft. Nothing you couldn't order/find online. I think I have mine torqued to around 4nm, and they are sturdy. I didn't recall any deforming of the hole, but I do recall thinking to myself as tightening them in the awkward space, that it could be troublesome if it strips for some reason.

3) You have to unwrap you bar tape on one side to get the 260 degree stem over the bars, then slide it over to the center. That is a bit of an annoyance also. The positive side, it wraps around 260 degrees, and there is just the 120 degree piece/portion, so it should be stiffer/stronger in theory. Just another installation PITA note with the design.

The stem is stiff, I also run aluminum bars, that part I'm satisfied with personally. The stem as you already know weighs very little for aluminum/carbon.

Besides those little nuances, I would say it is a good stem for the money.

You can buy some new M4 bolts also if the softness is a concern.

I'm running the standard C260 and I've been extremely satisfied with the stiffness. I don't think this design requires a lot of torque and that's probably why Ritchey included softer bolts - to keep from damaging anything else.

I don't crank the bolts and I've seen no reason why you'd need to.

I will echo the annoyance of installation though. I had to unwrap my bars to install this stem... though it gave me a better excuse to be rid of the horrible stock tape on my Felt

Well if Ritchey indicate the bolt torque as 5NM, shouldn't their expectation be that users will tighten to that torque?

When I was trying to install, I got nowhere near 5NM before the bolt sockets started to deform. I am a long time user of the 4-Axis stem and have high praise for it, but the C260 not so much.

Perhaps they should have reversed the direction of the bolts so that the heads were on the front of the stem and not the back.

From a visual, as well as functional aspect, I said the same thing. Why do the bolts fasten this way and are not on the other side?!?! The screw heads come out of the front 1-2mm or so, kind of goofy. But you don't really stare at it, just a minor thing/nuisance I suppose. The functional aspect, for torque, only the lowers can be a PITA. The tops are easy to get to and tighten.

$25 will get you 7 new titanium black tapered bolts to swap the faceplate and steerer ones if that bothers people. I know, who wants to pay more money when they already spent $110 to get something that should already be on there!

Where did you get your bolts? I looked into that and could find bolts but no washers to suit.

Hey guys - Angelo here from Ritchey.

We’re glad you all like the C260 Stem. I'd like to address the bolt head issue. The design of the C260 clamp allows us to move stresses off of the bolts and into the stem; thus smaller bolts are needed. The small M4 bolts are delicate and therefore, we changed these to T-20 Torx bolts; which drastically helps the issue of rounding out the bolt heads. If you have issues with rounded out bolt heads, please email us at rd_info_line (at) ritcheylogic.com.

This stem is designed to be a high-performance stem. We admit that it takes a bit more effort to install, but feel the benefits far outweigh the effort. We hope you all agree.

Thanks,
Angelo

No....as with any bike part, the torque value stamped on the part is MAX allowable torque NOT RECOMMENDED torque.

EM3

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My 2011 Cervelo R5

em3 - Exactly. Such a common mistake...

Well, exactly! If that's the max allowable torque, the bolt heads should be able to survive that without deforming. If they started to deform at 6NM then I'd be the dummy, but at less than the stated max there is undoubtedly a problem.

Right, and as you may/may not have read a post above from Ritchey themselves, they know about the issue, and are switching to a Torx model. You can contact them if you have issues about getting replacement bolts for your stem, if you even have one, like I do.

I bought the aluminum version, but it was not compatible with a PRO Vibe bar So I went ahead and bought the Cavendish signature stem instead. Now that's a stiff stem! It weighs like an anchor though...

I think that on the stem its written 4Nm not 5Nm..