Originally Posted by mharter

I have a Nitto north road bar set and a steel stem that I thought was the right diameter. I had to tighten the clamp bolt pretty tight to get the bars to stay put. All was well until I switched from a geared setup to a single speed. After a few weeks of working the stem hard on the up-hills, an amazing thing happened!

I was riding pretty fast along the southwest corridor bike path when I saw the binder bolt head go flying ahead of me me with a loud ping! The handlebars suddenly became loose and I had to quickly grad the stem for steering with one hand, while hanging onto the loose bars with the other. I was lucky that it didn't happen while I was riding through downtown! I'm now very interested in all aspects of the stem/handlebar interface. I found this thread very interesting as I look for a new stem.

Matt