Originally Posted by
Henry III
The Cinelli I've never had a problem. I had to switch to a shorter stem and just had this 60mm SR stem to use with these mustache bars so I wouldn't be looking like superman riding this bike. lol. What I found is that it's neither. The stem is just a hair too small in diameter for the steerer tube. So it has just space between the neck of the stem to allow some play. The stem is also kind of tall so I have it completely bottomed out and wedge is near the bottom of the steerer tube.
I've experienced the sloppy stem problem. I really noticed it after installing wide Kalloy trekking/butterfly bars. It was a Schwinn I-beam stem on my Schwinn Sports Tourer. I cut several different sized shims from an aluminum beverage can, and tried a few until I got it just right. Worked quite well, and continues to work quite well, after about 2K miles in the nastiest winter weather.
This was just after the rebuild - bike actually looks a lot better now with 2 years of nasty winter riding/grime/patina. I need to take a current pic.