jetboy 

I was also wondering this: not many people have addressed the second of his questions: is there a threadless stem that actually looks ok? (that one can purchase and not have custom made)

something like this?

https://store.velo-orange.com/index.p...31-8-rise.html

fietsbob

Bodged up a Tioga MTB quill stem got it shortened and made into a 4" wide open Face with 8 bolts in pairs of 4

so I could take my 2 sawn Sekai Narrow randonneur bend Bars

and combine them to be 1 wide bar that came apart, to pack in the carton for my Irish-Scottish Bike Tour ..

worked well .. when I came back I got a 48 wide Nitto Noodle Bar and a Terry long quill but short extension stem ..

Touring Bike sits in My Dark Basement Now..


NB: Custom builders of frames All can make you a custom quill stem Too . as seen in the many hand made bike exhibitions.

non-fixie 

This example definitely needs a little TLC, but this combo is my favorite:

non-fixie 

Pivo's nice too:

bici_mania

This stem came to me from @spacemanz - a profoundly generous person.

I think there is an elegant strength in quill stems that are distinctly lacking in threadless stems. Being Italian and the pantograph match my bike make it great, but because of how it came to me it is not something I will ever part with.

79pmooney

I like the whipping! Are you a sailor? (For the non-sailors; whipping is the tight wrap of twine around rope ends so they do not unravel. Since many of those ropes may spend many hours waving in the wind and are as critical as key engine parts in an automobile, keeping them from unraveling is very important. For off shore sailors, life and death. Whipping is a skill that 7 year olds in sailing families used to be good at.) My bikes have sported whipping many times, but never in such a prominent place. The other sorta sailing trick I use is turk's head rings, those braided rings we made in the 60s. I put them on the DT above the WB cage for my bikes with under BB cable guides and the SunTour top mounted DT shifters. They are actually good paint savers on any geared bike.)

Ben

bici_mania

Thank you, I think twine over cloth tape is far more aesthetically pleasing even if it does take more time and effort. I have been doing that for the last few years on most all of my bikes.

I have been trying to teach myself how to do other types of whipping such as turks head rings on the bicycle but have not yet managed to do it in such a way that I find acceptable. Saving the paint is part of the motivation for doing it. The other part is that, imo, it is simply beautiful in a functional sort of way, like a well made bike that gets heavy use.

All the men in my family, going as far back as anyone can tell, have been sailors till I came along. I have great appreciation and respect for the sea but I am a landlubber through and through.

Vonruden

gioscinelli 

Cinelli Grammo TI on a Cinelli:

SJX426 

Of course! no excuse.

Stubecontinued

Born in 1985, I didn't really get to experience the heyday of quill stems- my first bikes were 90's BMX bikes- and I loved chunky threadless stems on those and the early 200's mountain bikes. Sometime around 2005 I started riding "fixie conversions" and soon road bikes. I still like a threadless (Thomson) stem on my modern disc-equipped mountain bike, but give me a forged quill any day for a steel road bike. I love the slender grace of a quill, the lines are just more elegant, even compared to those custom threadless jobs.

gaucho777 

These are nice. Perhaps even the inspiration for the VO bars, since I found these pics on the VO Blog:





Mitch Pryor at MAP does beautiful work and builds custom threadless stems:

Map Cycles: Threadless Randonneur Project Stem | The Radavist

Photo from above link:


Check out these Llewellyn custom threaded stems:

Llewellyn Custom Handlebar Stem



A lot of independent framebuilders will make a custom lugged threadless stem, but they will cost significantly more than a typical production model (as expected). For the right frame, it might be money well spent since they can be incredibly beautiful and the stem is such and important element in the overall fit of a bike.

ThermionicScott 

Interesting -- I knew that fancy twine finishing had to come from somewhere!

jyl

Those threadless stems are very nice.

My thinking is that the nicest look for a threadless stem would be
- No protruding bolt at the rear, use pinch bolt in front of the steerer
- Slimmer stem tube, maybe solid for the slimmest profile, if hollow then ovalized since a stem sees mostly vertical forces and not much horizontal force
- A clamp that doesn't have bolts protruding at the front, so either a traditional closed clamp or an open face clamp opening downwards
- Polished alloy finish

Chombi

Add to that list of preferences, always a level or downward sloping (away from the bike) stem extension arm. Stems that angle upward are mostly fugly in my eyes......

dddd

True enough, and shops will thankfully not rely on the finishing tape, it but instead throw it away.

The finishing tape can be used though. If one applies a small drop of contact cement to the sticky side, one inch from the end that ends the wrap on the bottom side of the bar, and then as the last inch of tape is laid down, under tension, a bunched rag is applied firmly to the non-sticky side and slid along so that the glue gets slowly squeezed toward the end of the tape where it is pushed along and absorbed on the underside of the bar by the rag...
The resulting squeezed-superthin layer of glue permeates the tape adhesive almost immediately, so adhesion is near instant even though the glue was applied wet (not dry as is normal for contact adhesives).
It's best to also first apply a few very small drops of the contact cement to the "sticky side" of the last inches of the padded bar tape itself, so that maintaining tension in the bar wrap won't even have to rely on any any wrap of adhesive tape (except to facilitate the full curing of the glue).

The not-so-stretchy logo tape won't conform well to the surface of the bar tape unless the bar tape is wrapped to a consistent thickness by (using the slant cut) out to the edge of the bar sleeve or bulge. No one wants a wrinkled look there.
But, unfortunately, the tape has to be fairly rigid so that the "logo" doesn't get severely distorted and so that the tape's width remains consistent enough to overlap itself evenly. It helps to apply a bit of compression force where the finishing tape is falling onto the padded bar tape, so that tension alone (with possible over-stretching) in the finishing tape isn't relied on exclusively to flatten the often-lumpy last inch of the bar wrapping.

It's do-able but requires perhaps some tenacity and practice.

One can also apply two full wraps of clear Scotch tape after finishing tape has been carefully applied in a good and smooth state of tension, but if the clear tape has more tension than the finishing tape, the finishing tape will look wrinkled and the clear tape may become an eyesore.

kaiseroscar

[QUOTE=Chombi;17524240]

Maybe because it worked out so well with the silver and black theme on my ALAN...

QUOTE]

Can we get an ID on this please?? Anyone know the model name? Thanks

avhed

For a long backed rider that needs 130mm(+), the Nitto Dynamic II looks nice. The Cinelli 1/A look ugly above 125mm.

vintagerando

Hear, hear!

gugie 

+1

clubman 

There's beauty in the minimalist look of some quills. GB bars and stem, no adornments, just functional.

look171

My favorite.

Steiner74

I have actually seen a fully engraved and inlayed gold with a high polish quill before i dont know if it was totally custom or what, but damned if it wasn't better looking than even my old lady

Salamandrine 

1. Cinelli 1A. It is the epitome of a quill stem.

2. a) They're all going to be about the same if forged from 6061. b) Forget about it, it's a quill stem. c) I suspect they all suck in this regard, but the wedge type tighteners may be gentler than the expanding bolt, so I vote for Nitto over Cinelli.

3. Well I am just putting together a repainted PX10 and I'm using a threadless adapter and VO stem instead of a quick release vintage ATAX. As this is more of a hot rod than a restoration, it works aesthetically. In general, I would simply not do it to a vintage bike. That said, I actually think quill stems are a flawed design, (see answer 2b and mostly 2c) and I'm not that sorry to see them go. I don't know that there's anything about threadless that makes them inherently ugly. It's more a matter of current taste for giant logos splashed over everything. Somebody could easily reissue the Herse stem as a threadless type.

jyl

I think the aesthetic problem with threadless stems are
- Lots of exposed bolts
- Cylindrical tube shapes stuck together, no subtle curves or slender shapes