...that I, Andy, am to be king of all Bikeland!

That's right. I have removed the aluminum stem from the steel frame!

A few months ago, I acquired a rusty old Gitane Gypsy Sport. You may remember my vintage newb questions. It had spent about 20 years in somebody's barn and it showed.

I spent two weeks soaking the stem with PB Blaster, Liquid Wrench and ammonia. I beat it with hammers, put it in a bench vise and twisted, applied enough force to give myself a mild sprain in both elbows. Nothing worked. Finally, I decided that it was close enough to where I'd need it, so I gave up. I overhauled the headset in place, re-tightened the stem bolt and finished re-building the bike nearly as planned.

Then this morning I noticed that the handlebars were slightly misaligned. Funny, I thought, I never noticed that before. Later in the day, the significance of this misalignment occurred to me. So, this evening, I loosened the stem bolt, gave it a tap and, sure enough, I was able to move it.

I guess a few months of beating on it with a 190 pound mallet was what it needed.

Anyway, I tried telling my wife about this, but she just didn't seem to appreciate the magnitude of miracle involved, so I thought I'd come here and share.

It's amazing how little stuff like that means to the non-interested, isn't it?

I'm lucky I have an (almost) 8 year old son who LOVES this stuff!

Sometimes, he wants to talk bicycles a little too much for me...

Then I remind myself how lucky I am!

Bravo to your victory!!!

-R

Fun story......you 'da King.

Cool. Good thing the story doesn't include injury to rider or bicycle.