Need a stiffer stem....
 

I am using a 130mm Cinelli 1R stem on my Basso... love it but it has a lot of noticeable flex, especially when climbing while on the hoods or sprinting from a traffic light... I don't really want to change my fork to threadless as I want to retain the original fork. Anyone have any recommendations as to a nice stiff quill-type stem in 120 or 130 length? Or any experiences/ opinions on the various threadless adapters which are available? Thanks, hope everyone is having a good weekend so far :)

I used a stem-converter to adapt my 1" threaded to a 1 1/8th threadless. And a Thomson Elite stem on this. Very stiff and a great help.

they do flex, but for the record I have never personally seen one break in action. The 1A is a stiffer replacement, for a little more weight. The 2A is really stiff, but has some serious downslope.

Borrow a fixed gear bike from one of the hipsters and learn to smoothe out your pedaling and the potential flex of the stem will not be overly important. Power put into the handlebars is almost always wasted power.

Another thing to point out is that in the day, very few people would ride a 130 stem (most were in the 100-120 range) and bars would rarely exceed 42 cm. You would be surprised how much putting a period correct bar and stem on the bike will do to the ride.

Threadless stem adapters work just fine.

Thanks for the advice/recommendation. The flex is noticeable even when starting off from a stand-still, as well as sprinting in the drops so even though I need to smooth up my stroke there is always going to be pull on the bars, and therefore the stem. ... The 130 is a perfect fit for me, and it is a "period correct" Cinelli stem (with the Cinelli stamp on top, 'winged C' logo face plate, places it from 1978 to late 80's) and Cinelli 66-40 bar set-up, taken right outta the 80's which is vintage correct for my '85 Gap....

http://i364.photobucket.com/albums/o...uowen/b8-1.jpg

+1. The front end of my Circuit is very stiff.

I decided to go with a threadless adaptor, taking up from the 1inch quill to 1 1/8 threadless. I used a Zoom adaptor, Deda Zero100 120mm stem and Deda Zero100 42cm bar. Went on my first ride this evening with the new set-up and all I can say is wow! What a difference. The bar and stem are very light and stiff, and combined with the adaptor the weight is still less Than my Cinelli bar and quill stem combo. Only down-side is the over-size stem is larger diameter than my top tube lol.... I also tried the Deda carbon bar wrap, and not very impressed, I like my Cinelli cork wrap much better...:thumb: