Is this some kind of industry tradition? It's driving me nuts trying to find a non-black anodized threadless stem. I know they're out there, but never in my price range.

Anyway, I was just curious to see if there's a reason behind most stems being black.

Bugs me as well, not specifically stems, but bike components in general. I want SILVER!

Find a Cinelli Groove stem. They're available in both silver and black, and look nice to boot.

Eight colors to chose from.

Anodizing prevents corrosion of aluminium, it's applied by electrolysis, so it's very cheap and covers completely. It can be colored, and you can also apply a hard anodize to increase surface hardness of aluminium.

Price Point often has cheap silver stems.

Black reduces glare from the sun. I prefer silver or colors.

Shifty, it's the colouring that's the issue, not the process itself.

And my rack, for example, is simply painted black. I can scrape the paint off with a finger nail.

Oh yeah, oven cleaner takes off anodizing.

humm, I wonder how much it would cost to reanodize (if such a thing is possible) a black component to Red, or what ever color you wanted?

Steve W

have you tried it? in this article, they call that an "old wives tale"

https://fixedgeargallery.com/articles/polishing/

how to really remove anodizing

I think someone on Pinkbike.com was offering anodizing services for different bike parts. Not cheap.. but reasonable, don't remember any exact numbers.

should be fairly cheap, assuming the company doing the work has the correct chemicals for the color you want. i've designed some custom furniture using aluminum and have annondized small (16) piece production runs for fairly large surfaces for small (like $200) cost. i've also used the hard, architectural grade, which costs more.

not sure what the process would be for taking color off, but a naked stem should be cheap, imho.

yes, many times, any decent alkali (high ph) solution will take it right off, just wear rubber gloves. Oven cleaner is nice because it sprays on, but you could use lye mixed in some water. careful!

It's possible to re-anodize. They just have to drop the piece in an acid bath to remove the black and re-do it. Call a machine shop in your area to get a recommendation of a plater in the area, they will know who would have color capability, call the plater to talk price. It won't be cheap if they have to set up a tank for a special color, it will cost a bunch.

because threadless stems aren't ugly enough ?

thomson elite x2

I don't know if over cleaner works or not (but I suspect that it does). I can confirm that Red Devil lye will remove anodizing from aluminum parts. Just stripped a seat post. I need to go buy some Mother's polish tomorrow. I am going to strip my black stem as well before I build up the frame I just ordered.

WOOF!

Here is one without anodize, no need, it's titanium.

I found it in the back of the cleaning products cabinet, behind some ancient bug spray.

I have heard that you can get it in many grocery stores and hardware stores. Look for it with the drain clog busting products.

No, it does not weaken the aluminum. It only affects a very thin surface layer of the part. Leave the part in the water and lye solution just long enough to get the anodizing off. If you have not caused any pitting on the surface of the part (and you should not have) there will be no signifcant effect on the strength of the aluminum.

The -OH in the lye attacks the oxygen in the anodized layer. It does combine somewhat with the bare aluminium underneath, but at a much, much slower pace. You can control the reaction amount by timing a 5-minute dip interval, then rinse and inspect. Another method is to use Easy-OFF oven-cleaner. Spray a thin layer on so that it even coats the part, let sit for 5-minutes, and rinse to inspect. The sprayed-on thin layer ensures that there's only so much reactant and when it's converted to water, the reaction stops and doesn't proceed any further.

Rivendell sells a few silver Nitto threadless stems. https://www.rivbike.com/webalog/handlebars_stems_tape/

They are not cheap but look nice.

You can anodize stuff yourself at home if you really want. Search Google, it comes up with a few articles.