I was looking to build up a bike, and i noticed that the stems are around 100-200 dollars.

Thats around 1/3 the price of a starter fixie on bikesdirect?


Any reason for the high costs of stems?

If i buy a cheap nashbar stem, will it break?

thansk!

i'd be impressed to see anyone really break a stem, it seems like most of the time cost directly reflects brand name or shaving some minute amount of weight off of the part, both things that do not affect the components ability to do what it was made to do.

id say go with the one that you can afford

I have a rather extensive collection of stems.

My most "expensive" is an Easton EA70 which has a confounded way that the bolts thread into the stem and doesn't effectively clamp to my EA70 bars which I bought at the same sidewalk sale. I'm very happy that the bars and stem (which retail for ~$150) were only $25.

I have a number of Ritchey and Bontrager stems that work very well. I also have some silver cheap no-name stems that I like.

I have a Fuji stem that is supposedly "nicer" because it has 4 clamp bolts instead of two. I don't know how that makes it nicer, but it sure makes it a pain in the ass to install.

I have a Kore Lite stem. Works as nice as any of the others.

I notice no difference in stiffness among any of my threadless stems.

I generally buy cheap stems because I swap them frequently. For example, changing the brake or handlebar setup on a bike will result in needing a different length stem. I can't afford to spend $80 whenever I decide to switch a bike from drop to moustache bars.

performance bike has $34 stems, i think you're looking at really high end stems. $100-$200 is pretty ridiculous for a stem imho

I bought a stem on sale, didn't pay attention to # of clamp bolts and it was my first 4 bolt stem. I would go back and pay more money for 2 bolts.

you can find great deals on stems on eBay.

I got a threadless 100mm Orgin8 stem for $25.00 at the local LBS. Does the job and looks good.

look at jensonusa or cambriabike. you can get stems for ~10-20. However you won't have the full selection of lengths and rise, so you just have to be lucky, or not too choosy.

If you havent noticed every bike part is overly expensive, the whole bicycle industry is probably the most inflated market in existence!

4-bolt stems make a lot of sense for a rough-use MTB. But, even for a strong road rider, I suspect that its not really necessary. Maybe if you are a track gorrilla it would give you piece of mind though.

The rest of us can happily use the cheapest $15 one in the bottom of the LBS drawer.

jim

stiffness and weight

high end stuff is made for people who either need it or can afford it, racers or people with a lot of money

you don't need high end stuff, but it is there if you want it

personally i always buy good quality stems and handlebars because i can't stand it when those parts have a lot of flex

4 bolts are good for road users because a lot of the bars that they get matched up to can only take so much pressure at each point, so they're just putting the lower pressure (usually 5-6nm) at 4 points, it makes sense ... probably not something anyone needs to worry about on here unless you have carbon bars

stems that are light and responsive -and won't bust- cost bucks

a hunk o iron will be cheap, but ride like a brick

same with a dead alum stem. it does the job, weight is a bit more.

just got an ea30 off ebay for 5$

Ritchey FTW. 30 or so dollars and they look racey.

the forte pro stem from performance is one of the lightest stems on the market, without spending over $100. i got mine for $20 on sale. i haven't noticed any reason to think it will ever fail on me, and it is doing its job- holding the handlebars to the fork. my 100mm stem weighs in at 125 grams.

Incorrect.

The bicycle industry runs on the lowest profit margins of any industry out there.

If you want to get rich you won't do it in this industry. Try clothing. Or designer bags. Or running shoes.

wrong. it's the popcorn industry actually.

and that's not a joke about popcorn bags inflating.



I just thought I'd drop some trivial knowledge on you.

$7
https://jensonusa.com/store/product/S...Ea30+Stem.aspx

I'm sure there's $200 stems out there... but there's also $4000 frames, to put them on.

I dont know.. looking at old literature you could buy a top of the line road bike in the early 70s for about $400-500, now today you're looking at least around what, ten thousand?

If you can a aluminum wheelset for $200, and another company could sell a lighter weight aluminum wheelset for $1000 something ain't right.. can't be based on material cost, the heavier wheelset should be more expensive to produce haha.

popcorn was probaby only marked up $5 since the 70s.

Is a $1 burger as good/tasty as a $6 burger? Same idea.

It is when it is $1 burger night.

That's all engineering. You can put no money into engineering and put out a heavy piece of junk that just works, or you get something that is highly engineered that will weigh the least in its class. Once something is engineered (which in itself costs a lot of money), it will cost more money to produce, because of the tolerances you may end up with a lot more dead/wasted pieces, etc.

It's also a pretty bad example. If you want to compare a $200 wheel to a $1000 wheel you are comparing a cheap low end wheelset to a high end racing wheel or a low end carbon wheel. That engineered wheelset is also going to be a hell of a lot stiffer and have more reliable hubs, lighter spokes, etc.

Then when you get into specialty materials like titanium and carbon, there are different grades of the material. A cheap carbon frame would not be as good as an expensive aluminum frame, for example.

u gotta pay to play. when your bike is worth 300$ then a 100$ stem is spensive.... when ur bike is worth 2000$ , a 100$ aint ****

I recently scored an nos Nitto Technomic for $6.00...

I thought it was bottled water. A typical bottle of water is about 1600 times more expensive than the same amount of water from your kitchen tap.