I've made a lot of alterations on my commuter/sometimes tourer to make it a leaner, meaner machine. Basically all that remains of the original is the frame- an early eighties Motobecane steel frame. (which I'll replace when I can afford a Merlin Cyrene [today's object of my desires, not necessarily yesterdays or tomorrows].)

My only regret is the loss of my quill stem when I went thread-less for easy accommodation of a carbon fork. I don't regret the fork in the least, but now feel that I should've gone for a threaded one and kept the quill.

Now what I have is a truly inelegant Ritchey Adjustable, a real eye sore to me. In lieu of a quill stem, what are my options for a simpler, cleaner look approaching that of the quill?

*It seems I can't upload from my hard-drive, else I'd post pics.

(Pics need to be smaller than 100k to upload - 'Easy Thumbnails' is the program I use to resize photos quickly and easily)

I agree that threadless stems are quite the eyesore, and an adjustable one at that must be 3x worse. If you have dialed in the length and angle that you need/want with the current Ritchey then do some measurements and start looking at a non-adjustable stem with the same setup. There was a lengthy thread by ViperZ in the road forum recently asking for suggestions on good looking stems. Lots of good suggestions there. Beyond that, if you really want the quill back, then swapping forks may be the only course of action. I have heard of people attempting to turn 1" threadless forks into 1" threaded, however I have never attempted to do such, and as the fork was not designed with such a function on mind I would not support such a plan.

Hey thanks for directing me to the thread. Definitely addresses my issue. I just have to measure the angle then check out some of the less ostentatious stems mentioned there.

Nitto makes a reasonably priced lugged ahead stem. Only thing is they come in 1 1/8" clamps only so you must use a shim...yuck.

Yuck +1. Disheartening, I'm realizing that I'll have to go with a positive angle because the steerer was cut to work with the stem I have on it, well a little room to spare, not much though.