On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 11:55 AM, Jim Thill - Hiawatha Cyclery <thill....@gmail.com> wrote: > 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. >
Jim, I have a burley tandem with a threadless headset/stem and having to move it around to get the bars up was a giant pain in the ass. I had a bianchi castro valley, same thing, In general, I've found that since getting a rivendell that headset adjustment and maintenance, including raising and lowering the bars, give me much less heartburn. I'm not pulling the idea of not like threadless from a place of zero experience with them. I'm coming from my own personal experience and watching what happens with normal use of a bike for me. I have no doubt that you have vastly more experience from the perspective of a bike shop owner and mechanic. Furthermore, I have no doubt that threadless is easier for a bike shop to deal with. HOWEVER, I do not buy a bike for the bike mechanic at the bike shop. I do not buy anything b/c it is easier for the mechanics to work on it. I buy it b/c it is easier for ME to use. Remember, the mechanics can love whatever technology they will love, but if it just continues to annoy customers then that's not good at all. I speak to that from well over a decade in computing - a field where ignoring what is actually USEFUL to the customer in exchange for what is easier for the developer has been promoted to HIGH ART. -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.
