Old 11-11-20 | 01:23 PM
  #7  
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pcb
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From: Joisey
Golly gee, so much going on, and I can't really tell what's before/after.

Pic #1: Max fork w/longer steer tube & stack o' spacers, Salsa upjutting stem, bell on left side, dt shifters, high-flange Sherrif-Star hubs (swoon!)
Pic #2: Different/standard-spec? fork w/shorter steer tube & no stack o' spacers, non-Salsa upjut stem, bell in front, brifters, low-flange hubs

Not that I'm necessarily qualified to award Fredette points, since I really only understand them in relation to 1980 gear, but the most Fredette feature to me on both builds is the upjutting stem, and maybe the bell? Which they both have.

The Salsa stem gets more cool points than the no-name/generic? stem, but neither strike me as any more/less Fredette-ish. Ditto on the bell position. Hard for me to tell from the pix whether one bar position is higher than the other, since the Salsa has less up-angle but longer steer tube, but I'm not seeing a big difference in actual bar height. And brifter-vs-dt doesn't register on the Fredette scale for me.

So though it may be obvious to the Bianchi Goddess, it's not getting through my thick skull.

I'll also pipe up with a general-audience concern/warning about that Salsa stem. Most I've seen/used have _very_ short insertion quills, with very little room for vertical rise if you want to keep the wedge in the unthreaded section of the steer tube. They kind of always have to be slammed if you want to protect the steer tube threads. My worry in the first pic is that unless that steer tube only has a short run of threads up real high, just near the top, it's very likely the stem wedge is tightening in the threaded section, which is a failure vector. Or unless that's a stem I haven't seen that has a longer quill.

It's something to keep in mind with any frame that uses a longer steer tube, even/especially frames with tall head lugs. You gotta know where your threads are, and make sure your stem wedge/cone isn't tightening in the threaded zone. Not having that concern is one advantage of threadless stems.
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