Weight Weenies

Was just browsing bikeradar and saw these:



100g for 100mm despite featuring 7 bolts. More here: http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/ritchey-bolster-component-lines-for-2012-31141

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kinda defeats the point of having a face plate that comes of if you still cant fit the bars that way, looks to me like you would have to feed the bars through like the old 1bolt stems unless your running a bar with a flat section

Probably can take it off still unless you wrap it all the
way to 31.8 middle section of the bar.

Spent many of my earlier years dealing with removing levers and tape to be able to thread the bars through - Jeezz what a backward step from Ritchey

Nooooo Thanks.

Most bars will come off without removing levers... It will remove at the point where most bars taper.

Thanks Pez - now that you mention it - with the larger center clamp sections (versus the older 26mm) it does make sense that it would work

Indeed, this 260 stem wouldn't work with, say, Pro Vibe bars, that have a continuous section of 31.8mm from where the stem clamps until where it tapers off to about 24mm in the bend where the the levers clamp.

I'm sure it'll work with all Ritchey bars. Why otherwise would Ritchey bring such a thing out? Think whatever you think, I'm just the messenger and also happen to like Ritchey's design. That said, it's better illustrated by a picture, where you can see that 260º clamping of 31.8mm is more than 24mm so it gives enough space for the bars to pass through at the sections with the smaller diameter:

pro built a better mousetrap

Better in what measure(s)?

Another article explaining the design

http://www.singletrackworld.com/2011/07 ... -new-stem/

YoKaiser wrote:Another article explaining the design

http://www.singletrackworld.com/2011/07 ... -new-stem/

From the article...

The Pro teams are currently using it in the Tour. The alloy stem is 3-4 times better than Ritchey’s previous stem in testing – and it’s 30% stiffer than Ritchey’s popular (and winning) 4Axis stem.

3-4 times better!

The pro vibe is worse in at least one way: you can't flip it so it's less versatile.

PezTech wrote:Better in what measure(s)?

Don't let your thinking get in the way of marketing! It is 3-4 times better and has been scientfically proven!

interesting to see 3 bolts at the back!

@spartan: I helped with the design of that Pro bar clamping piece. Its designer is a friend of mine and the same guy who designed the Vibe bars. He even asked for my feedback during early development of that stem. Also, after seeing its first proto, I was actually the one who made that one fit so yeah, I'm intimately acquainted with its constraints. Despite that, I find that Ritchey succeeded at doing a better job with their new C260 and that'll likely reflect in sales.

One caveat, I don't know how well the Ritchey C260 clamp will do with, say, carbon bars that have a torque limitation of 3Nm. I get the impression that the uneven clamp force might not sit will with the 'black stuff' without resorting to some metal reinforcement for the clamping surface on the bars. A bar clamp with two equal degrees of clamping surface has so far proven best for carbon bars.

What I would actually like is to see an even lighter and stiffer stem come to the market, say, 80g for 120mm...

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