is there anything smaller than a 1" stem?
 

so i took my bike to my LBS and the mechanic said i probably need a 1" stem (cause the stem on there does look like a 1") we didnt actually measure it. i wasnt there just to ask him what size stem i needed i was there for something else and out of the blue i just asked him if he knew what size i would need. so i ended up getting a 1" stem online but when i got it it was too big to fit. my frame and fork is an 86 schwinn sprint. is there anything smaller than a 1"?

Old French stems are slightly smaller. I thought Schwinns were 1'' though.

However, a trick with French bikes is to take sandpaper to the stem to reduce its size. You're taking off only a couple millimetres.

Is JIS smaller? I forget. Anyways Japanese bikes (like the Sprint) sometimes used a slightly different sized stem... I'm pretty certain it was smaller.

so are you saying its a japanese or french bike? haha i didnt even know this.
so i should find a french stem or something?
the stem i got is too big to just sand down. its a significant difference

quill?
normal 1" quills are 22.2mm
french quills are 22.0mm
your schwinn might be the 'american' 1" size...which is really 13/16" or 21.15mm

Its Japanese, there is no way in hell any Schwinn would have anything French on it. I have heard of people sanding stems down, but I don't know what the difference is. I'm 99% sure you have a JIS stem/headtube.

yes the one on my bike now is a quill
i think i understand what i did wrong.
i got a stem that wasnt a quill
it said the sz was 25. something
which made sense to me cause 1" converts to 25mm
thing is i wanted something that wasnt a quill
the one i have is too short and i dont like it
with a - degree angle (i hope that made sense)

huh? that made no sense
you can't replace a quill stem with a threadless one. that is, without an adaptor

25.4 is probably referring to the handlebar clamp diameter.

yeah i now realized how bad i messed that up

I had a schwinn traveler with a .83" stem

i once rebuilt an old girl's schwinn (goofy ass 5 speed with a schwinn branded derailleur) and needed a longer stem. turns out it was a .83 also. i decided that i was ****ed and just dealt with using the same old one.

i think you can get some old bmx **** in .83, but that really doesn't do you any good.

I just replaced the bent fork on my raleigh with one from some japanese bike. It had a 21.15mm or .833 inch stem. I believe the 1 inch is the outside diameter of the steering tube while the other measurements are the inside diameter. Anways, the guy at boulevard bikes told me that a lot of schwinns had the .833/21.15 mm stem/steering tube, and, in fact, I just found a schwinn stem the other day that was this size. According to sheldon brown, this is the one piece crank/bmx size, but apparently it is also the 'schwinn size.' I just refer to it as my wacky stem. Good luck!

Absolutely 21.15mm. I was actually scrolling down hoping that nobody answered yet...I'm never the first one who knows the right answer, dammit!

Anyway, Schwinn, in the 80's, used Tange tubing for their fork steerer tubes that was of the same outer diameter, but the inner diameter was smaller than one inch because the wall was thicker on the tubing. I used to know why, but I'm not as into vintage Schwinns as I used to be.

Yup, the quill on my 1980 Schwinn Traveler (fixed-gear conversion) is narrower. I'd figured that it was a 22.0, but now that I realize there's a smaller size, it's probably the 21.15 - it's noticeably smaller than 22.2mm.

Mebbe poke around the vintage forum, too.

It's not THAT much to sand off. It's never fun, but it does the job. Alternately, check any sort of local used bike places, they'll often have such things laying around.


Those b*stards at Schwinn were always making life harder for everyone. They are responsible for more dead tire sizes than any other company, not to mention that crappy stem size and various proprietary threadings (Schwinn one piece cranks use a different threading than normal). Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of the quality of their bikes, they'll out last EVERYTHING, but as a company, I think we're FAR better off without them.

after I realized the stem was weird, I decided to screw it and ended up buying an angus..

After the year 2000, I tend to agree.

Personally, I could do without any Schwinn with a Schwinn specific tire size. 597? 584? 571? 419?

I think the whole bunch of 'em shoulda been dragged out and beaten.


Their bikes will survive the apocolypse with the cockroaches, there's no denyin' they're indestructible, but the world would be SO much better if they'da stuck to standard tire sizes instead of making us deal with all their bullshti for the next 5000 years.

Yeah, I still can't find a seat post that'll fit my sprint.

do you know what size it is? Kalloy and Thompson make nearly every size ever made.

I used to, but now I forgot. When I gets me access to calipers I'll have to check it out.

if you take it to a shop they'll probably have the handy-dandy seatpost measuring tools, which generally give a better idea of the size than calipers tend to in my experience.

A couple of months ago I ordered and got a 25.8mm Kalloy aluminum seatpost for my '91 Schwinn Frontier from QBP. It's even a 1-bolt type. I was very suprised because I didn't think I could even get another steel pipe-style post in this oddball size!