Originally Posted by Heavy Rider
Hello All,
I'm a first-timer here, although i've been "lurking" for some time. Anyway, I bought a Takara "Super 12" touring bike off of eBay several months ago. I'm very tall (6' 9"), and the frame on the bike was a righteous 27" from center BB to top of seat tube. It had (and still has) a Suntour "7" derailleur group, with alloy wheels.
The crankset was a Suntour alloy with odd-ball/bcd steel rings. I swapped out the crankset with a Sugino Alps all-alloy, put a different chain, freewheel, seat/post, stem, and Richie handlebar on it. I replaced the stem shifters with a set of Sutour "Power Ratchet" downtube clamp-ons. I had to grease everything, and retained the three-piece bottom bracket after new bearings, etc. Voila, a sweet ride. It's become my favorite bike, not so much because it fits well (it does), but because of the way it rides.
Now, the reason for my post...my bike takes a 21.1 (.833) stem. It took me a while to sort that out. That's the same size as BMX bikes and department store cheapies. All of those stems are solid steel and heavy, but they fit. My Takara is better quality than that. I was looking for an alloy stem with more extension, to replace the original alloy stem. I searched the internet for a better-quality 21.1 stem, and came up short. I finally had to laboriously file down and sand a 22.2 Specialized stem that I had on hand, and it's now a perfect fit.
Hope this helps someone...I really like the bike!
Thanks for that reference to the stem thing, Heavy Rider. After posting and remeasuring with a metal tape, I came out with a figure of 20 mm or so, until I bought a vernier digital caliper which agrees with your 21.1 measurement. All I can find as well to fit are the heavy steel stems, and was tempted to go this route until I read your post. If you can sand down an alloy stem by 1.1 mm and get it to work I am prepared to do that as well. Are you concerned that this may weaken the stem too much? The prospect of a snapped stem downill at 168 rpm concerns my insurance salesman.
My frame came in two parts, and as I said the frame feels very light and is in great shape. The fork with the thicker steerer tube feel heavy, and as well as adapting a stem to fit, I am also considering getting a lighter 1" threaded fork to go with it as an option, and then using the older forks with the fender eyelets for possible touring. I have a 109 mm Shimano sealed BB to put on it, and will swap in my fixed wheeset with OPen Pro rims and Tufo tubular clinchers pumped up to 140 lbs., and see what kind of personality I end up with. I am not sure if forks are that interchangeable however.
Thanks, Chris.