Thought I'd post this knowing there were a number of La Cruz and Casserolls in this forum.

https://salsacromotostem.com/

I wondered why my Casseroll showed up with a non-painted stem. Now I know.

Bummer, those stems are so cool looking.

Yeah, I still haven't swapped mine. I think when I do I'm going to buy the same grade (+/- 9) and flip it - out of spite. I'm kinda sad. I like my pretty orange stem. Once i took the Salsa stickers off, it looked awesome.

Thomson Elite? Ritchey something? Does Chris King make an unnecessarily-bad-ass stem? Ideas?

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT A PAIN IN THE ARSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got mine from a NZ company that imported it from the US. I can see this is going to be no fun at all getting it replaced. (grrr can't even use an angry smiley on my work comp).



I love my orange bike, now it not be all orange no more. (sad smiley)

thanks for the post though JeffS I would have never known otherwise.

I had great service from Salsa (QBP) when I had a problem. Try calling them via skype, it's cheap and effective.

I ordered my Salsa from Jenson, they shipped to me via APO, and have been super helpful. I'm going to miss my painted stem too, but decided to go w/ a Ritchey 4-axis. Overkill, but I didn't see anything else I like.

It gives me a chance to go to a bit longer stem, which I think I need.

Breaking a stem sucks - I once had a Control Tech stem break on my road bike, and not crashing was more about luck than rider skill. It turned out that the stem I'd bought from the LBS was under recall - this was before the Web was quite so useful, probably 1994 or so, so I had no idea.

If you miss the painted stem, check around for powder coating shops. For a few bucks, a local shop will powder coat anything you want (well, within reason!) for a few bucks in a rainbow of colors.

Yeah, that's the good news for me too - I need a bit longer and can go with flat or negative. I still may flip the orange one for a couple weeks before trading it in, just to see...