I took a flyer on a carbonzone (eBay store) stem. OEM stem was starting to look a little beat up, rusted, and I just never liked it much anyway. Carbonzone products seem to have a good rep, especially their wheels. The only other Chinese manufacturer I tried was someone else and it was handlebars (turns out they were a 3T Ergonova knockoff - I didn't know that when I bought them) - not impressed with the bars at all and didn't install them.

Anyway went ahead and installed the new stem. It looks nice - UD carbon, and it feels stiff so far (we'll see about that on a ride though). It came in at 126 grams(110mm) for what its worth which is about 30 grams lighter than the OEM for the weight weenies. Not really a big deal though.

Just curious if anyone else has given these a try?

Why take the risk with unknown carbon stems when there are several aluminium stems around 125g for 110mm?

It was $40. Oh and it looks cool. And Carbonzone has a good reputation. I was thinking someone who has bought a frame from them likely has a stem as well. Honestly the weight is not a big concern. I might look into something else later. I've been considering Zipp when I want to get spendy.

I just went with 110mm 3T ARX Pro ALU stem $40 shipped on Ebay. Some things I just go with AL, like stem and handlebar over cheap carbon.

+1 on 3T ARX

Stem Review - Fairwheel Bikes Blog

Used aluminum stuff probably makes me more nervous actually than carbon. The only cockpit item I've seen catastrophically fail in person was an aluminum Ritchey handlebar break right at the stem during a crit. The guy crashed hard and broke his collar bone. Aluminum fatigues and apparently, or so I was told at the time, aluminum on aluminum mixed with sweat can cause a type of corrosion which someone told me was the cause of the break. Should look it up to see if that's correct or not. Of course then there's all the cracked Thomson stems...

3T does make great stuff and one of their carbon handlebars is on my short list for when I get around to changing bars.

Yes I've seen this. I think it's fairly old unless they've redone it since the last time I saw it. Looks the same as I remember it.

Aaaand since I have this on my clipboard from two other threads now - here's the bike and said stem.

Kalloy Uno 7 (Taiwan; ebay).

You can acetone off the graphics.

Hmmm - so a no name aluminum stem is better than a no name carbon stem? Sorry not being argumentative just never heard of Kalloy.

Just a few short miles on the carbon stem. Feels fairly solid.

If my memory serves me right, Kalloy manufactured reliable bike products during my BMX days. Has a very good rep on WW as well.

Well it is cheap. And light if the specs are right. How stiff are they? You're right the graphics are kind of busy but if you can take them off with acetone that might work. I might pick one up.

Aluminum can be dangerous too if you don't know what you're doing. I had a friend who had a cheap aluminum frame (MTB) that wasn't annealed correctly and it actually broke in half on him. And Thomson has had some manufacturing issues recently.