Originally Posted by
agnewton
Were they rubber? The catalog spec says, "soft stiched sleeves". I assumed that meant leather or maybe "pleather". VO had some leather sleeves available last year. Maybe once I get the brake lever position fine-tuned I'll get the leather sleeves
.
I still have one loose question that hasn't been resolved in the discussion. So it's bad to sand down the bar clamp diameter (25.4--> 25.0 for French stems); is it also unsafe to "expand" a French stem handlebar clamp to accommodate an ISO bar (i.e. 25.0 --> 25.4mm)?
Thanks.
On the stem question, I know that some have removed material from the stem clamp area in order to fit a larger diameter bar, but I would not. It is a relatively small amount of material, but you have to ask yourself if material removal at that particular place is really a good idea. It may never fail, but the stem was designed for a certain size bar. And there are so many good options for putting together a great bar/stem combo that were made to fit, so altering something like that is really not necessary. It just becomes a kludge. Whether or not it is unsafe is up to one's judgement. A stem failure is among the worst that can happen on a bike.