Bicycle Mechanics - Threadless Pains

I wanted other opinions on the threadless stems. Are they superior to the threaded headsets ? The reason I ask is that I am on going on 3 weeks and $ 85 bucks to change from a -10 degree road stem to a +5 degree. If I had a quill stem, it would of been free and taken 3 minutes to adjust. My road bike had a 9 cenitmeter drop from the top of the seat to the top of the bars. I wanted to raise the bars so the drop was 4-5 centimeters. I thought I had a standard 1 1/8" headset and ordered a nice thomson stem, but it turns out it my bike had a 1". I mistakenly measured the top cap and thought it was 1 1/8". My mistake. Thomson stems have a big bolded warning on the instructions that say only Thomson shims can be used to reduce to 1". I also needed a bigger top cap. I have ordered both, but they are on back order. I am still waiting. What a pain and I don't like the look of positive degree stems on a road bike anyway.

there are a lot of benefits to a threadless fork/headset/stem combo over a threaded: lighter total weight, less likely to freeze together, easier to separate if they do, no threaded steerer to bugger up.

that said, i think threaded set-ups are much easier to adjust... i've got no real preference either way, but since the industry is going threadless almost across the board it's what we'll all have to live with (except for those lucky folks riding nice vintage stuff)...

Why not just flip your stem and be done with it? Its only a 5% difference. I like threadless stems, but you have to get it right the first time. Some people start out with extra spacers and move they on top of the stem as they adjust the fit.

I went through the same conversion a year or so ago with one of my roadbikes. It had come with a aluminum alloy 1" fork. It had a conventional stem. I switched to a carbon fork and a threadless headset. I ordered a stem for the new fork that would maintain a overall stem angle of approx. 17degrees (top of stem parrallel with the ground). The biggest difference that I noticed was yeah, threadless stem/steerer tube setups are definitely quirkier to adjust. Weight? I don't really know if the threadless steerer tube has much of an advantage. I know what the advertising says, but I didn't take any comparartive weight measures before and after my swap, so who knows? I've owned and maintained bicycles for approximately 40 years, I've never had a threaded steerer tube with buggered threads and I've never had a conventional stem weld itself to the inside of the steerer tube. But I suppose anythings possible if you abuse and neglect your equipment. If I could do it over, I would have spent more time trying to find a carbon fork built with a 1" threaded steerer tube.

I'm a fan of the old style too. Much easier to adjust imo. My current rig has 5 spacers on it now as I am trying to adjust the stem height before cutting the fork. Once thats done thats it, it's done. The quil stem you can micro adjust as needed. I also have had a problem with the expansion nut sliding up to meet the bottom of the cap. Now it is torqued properly and I don't have this prob but it just does'nt seem as secure as the older style. Like perhaps after so much road vibration it will slide up again and then you have no bearing load on your headset.

I just got a bike with the new threadless design. I think I have it all adjusted, and I have about 3/4" of an inch above the stem with spacers, so I can still raise it that much, plus I can flip it and get a little more rise. The new setup looks cool, but the old style does look more refined. The threadless design looks much more mechanical with all the exposed bolts. But this is the new standard. :rolleyes: