I'm pretty sure I was riding a set of these Scott Tri Bars (right) in '86 or '87 before Lemond introduced them to Europe. All us triathletes had 'em!

http://www.crank.co.za/wp-content/up.../brad_1987.jpg

Doesn't sound right. I had a threadless bike that was a 99/00 and don't remember it being anything new at the time. Looks like Cane Creek filed the patent in 1990.

It would be interesting to narrow down when the pros started using threadless stems. I could make out that the three riders in San Sebastián in 1994 that the camera got close enough to had quill stems.

I also think it would be fun to get more info on the transition from downtube shifters to brifters in the 1990s. Who were the last downtube holdouts in the peloton?

I just realized that I have the 1997 Giro on my hard drive, too. I saw a mixture of quill and threadless stems in that one.

Here is a time line I found...

http://www.ibike.org/library/history-timeline.htm