Seth: I think you're making far too much of the difficulty of adjusting bar height on threadless steerers. I have seen this rumor perpetuated again and again, but it simply isn't true, in my experience. On all my threadless bikes, I have enough steerer that I can move the bars a cm or even an inch or so either way in a matter of a minute, simply by loosening a couple bolts and moving a spacer from below to above the stem, or vice versa. Resetting the headset is trivial with any sealed bearing headset (and most threadless headsets are sealed bearing, unlike most currently available threaded units...). Just snug down the top cap, then tighten the stem bolts, and that's it. It's all done with a 5mm allen, no headset spanners required. There is no "giant pain in the ass" involved, unless, of course, your steerer is far shorter than it should be. In that worst- case scenario, there are threadless steerer extenders that are similar in function to the quill adapters you've described. As a matter of fact, one of the many reasons driving the widespread move to threadless is that it makes it MUCH easier for bike shop employees to fit a new bike to a buyer by swapping stems without monkeying around with the tape, levers, shifters, etc.
On the other hand, there are obviously people who disagree with me, so I suppose it's nice that Riv is still providing the threaded option. Personally, if I'm shopping for a bike/frame, a threaded steerer system is a drawback. It's not enough to make me outright reject an option that otherwise has good features/design/aesthetics, but all else being equal... On Aug 29, 9:18 am, Seth Vidal <skvi...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 3:41 AM, Jim Thill - Hiawatha Cyclery > > > > <thill....@gmail.com> wrote: > > Seth makes a good point, in that many Riv customers and aspiring Riv > > customers prefer the classic quill aesthetic, and maybe Grant has > > decided that filling this niche is an important part of the RBW > > business model. But threadless steerers have been mainstream long > > enough now, that even retro-grouches can appreciate that it is a > > proven design. I'm not going to get into my long list of reasons to > > favor 9/8" threadless, but in the context of this discussion, one key > > point has surfaced: there are a lot of interesting handlebars that > > can't be used with available quill stems. If a bar has a 31.8 clamp > > area, and many newer bars are only available in 31.8, there is no > > quill stem that will accommodate it. If the bar is not a single > > continuous bend - think h-bar - then a removable face plate is needed, > > again, not generally available in a quill stem. If versatility is a > > hallmark of the RBW brand, then the quill stem runs counter to that > > ideal, given the current huge variety of threadless stems and > > handlebars that cannot be used on Rivendell frames without some kind > > of kludgy adapter. > > If you're making a point about versatility then threadless limits > moving the height of the bars around trivially. If you want to have > more versatility then you > have a threaded->threadless adapter made that has the same rise as > nitto technomic. Then you can move the bars up and down as much or as > little as you'd like > AND you can put whatever stem you want on it. It also has the virtue > of no matter what you do to your handlebars, you don't have to reset > your headset in the process. > > I've used the threaded->threadless adapters and they do not feel even > slightly kludgy to me. No more so than 3 piece cranks, at the very > least, b/c you have a post and then a > separate piece that fits around that post and is bolted tight. > > I've never seen a bike where I set the height of the bars once and I > didn't move it around to get it right - if only by a cm or so. Doing > that on threadless is a giant pain in the ass, doing it on threaded is > trivial. > > I don't think of myself as a retrogrouch at all and I don't think I've > ever considered threadless to be 'unproven' or anything else like > that. I do, however, think that threadless is unnecessarily limiting > and there is no way to work around that limitation. > > I think the limitations of threaded can be worked around by some > fairly simple part additions. > > That, to me, speaks to the elegance of the design. > > -sv -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bu...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
