This is the stem my bike had on it up until last week, it's super light, just a little too long for me:



Today I saw this pic on Sheldon Brown's site of his IRO bike, and that Avenir stem looks pretty much exactly like mine except for the length and the angle.

https://sheldonbrown.com/org//iro/584/images/09.jpg (large pic so link only)

Wonder how much these went for? Looking on Avenir's site it looks like they're not made anymore. I wish I could find one like Sheldon's, because IMHO that single clamping screw that pushes against the side of the steerer tube seems superior than 2 exterior clamping bolts.

Probably not too expensive. I've had a few Avenir products over the years and found them to make good quality, but affordable accessories. I have some Avenir bar-ends on my mountain bike which have a triangular cross section that I really like, but sadly no longer made.

The details of your stem look a bit different from the one on Sheldon's site. Might just be a similar design.

It's got the exact same 2-bolt piece that secures the bars which is why I was wondering. Everything looks the same except the length and angle of the stem.

I was surprised how much heavier my Nashbar adjustable stem and steel high-rise bars were in comparison to my old stem and RaceFace aluminum bars.

I admit the clamping mechanism on the steerer looks clean but don't know that it is functionally superior. As for weight, take a heavy stem (adjustable stems have extra stuff to make them adjustable) and heavy bars (steel risers aren't usually light) and compare with a light stem (fixed, alloy) and light bars (flat, alloy) and I would expect a significant difference.

Aveneir is a brand name made up by the Importer.

I believe it was associated with Diamond Back in the late '90 and early '00s. (At least there are a lot of DBs out there with Avenir parts and accessories on them.) And the LBS around here that sold DBs in that time frame carried the Avenir line.

There is a classic high quality MTB stem with that pinch bolt placement, I don't know anything more than that but it wasn't Avenir.

Yes, in this case Raleigh. Most of their stuff is decent for price point stuff, and often you will find exactly the same parts elsewhere with different brands on them.