Originally Posted by
Bike tinker man
I've seen it mentioned on another write up about dating bikes, that the Allen head bolts did not start showing up till around 1980, unfortunately I cannot find the article, others may have better filing system. If its NOS remake then its I guess purely costing
I agree - Allen-head fasteners are a relatively recent addition to bike tech - I’m trying to recall if any of my bikes from the 70s or even early 80s had Allen fasteners - I don’t think so. The other advantage of the fastener on the left is that it avoids threading a steel fastener into relatively soft aluminum - a recipe for stripping the threads for the ham-handed- or novice mechanic in a time before widespread use of torque wrenches. I don’t know what the setup is with the stem on the right, but I had at least one Cinelli stem in which the fastener threaded directly into the Al