Brian, it's not the end of the world to file and sand down the stem shaft, if you have to. I got the Cinelli old-logo stem pictured on eBay, knowing that someone had filed it down to fit French. It really looked pretty awful; wish I had taken a picture -- the file was pretty coarse, and it still didn't fit into my PX-10 steerer. So I went at it with 150, 180, 220, 320, 500 and 800 wet-or-dry paper in the kitchen sink, and finally finished with automotive rubbing compound (the red stuff) quitting there because I couldn't find my can of polishing compound. It's shinier than the clear anodizing. I went so high because that's what the file guy had done, but if you know the extension you need and what you want left pristine, you can stop wherever you want by masking off the top portion -- I used vinyl tape at the mask line, and covered the whole stem above that with blue painter's tape.





I figure I'll just put a thin band of colored tape at the break on this one.

I also did the same thing on a GB stem for another project -- it actually had a shoulder below the 7-bend, so it was easy to stop the thinning/polishing there. The problem with this approach is that the finished work on the lower section actually looks better than the rest of the stem. If I ever use the Cinelli for a "special" bike, I'll probably remove the anodizing with oven cleaner, and polish the whole thing.

Stem diameters are somewhat deceptive. Most of the "22.2" stems I have are actually 22.1 mm (I have quite a few), and the GB I chose for that project partly because it was a bit under that, so I had to remove less to fit in the Motobécane steerer.