Hi All, I've just had my third stem that the handle bar clamp didn't release the handle bar enough to seperate the two without resorting to forcing the clamping area apart. My guess is that the bars and stem have been attached for at least 15 years. The first two were Nitto stems and the third is a copy of the Nitto made by UIM(?) in Japan. I tested a fourth UIM stem that wasn't clamped to a handle bar and it accepts a handle bar normally.

Is this fairly common?

TIA, Brad