Thanks for the video Dan. I just checked the Modolo stem on my 1989 Schwinn Prologue. Sure enough, mine’s machined flat on the bottom as well. What a bummer as that is such a good looking stem, especially in gloss black as mine is. I really appreciate this information.
Hey Dan , great topic for us vintage bike fans. I know exactly what you mean about AVA and Selcof stems . Been using. 3tt REORD stem on three bikes since I got it from a friend back in 73. Always keep my eye on it. Looking forward to your next video. All the best!
I have a 3ttt quill stem from the late 1980’s.Looks great at first glance, and was going to use on a restoration of an ex Polish team bike from that era. On closer examination it had a big crack on the inside of the clamping area! Another great video!
I’ve always admired the ascetics of the Modolo stems and nearly bought myself one on a few occasions, your video has made me glad I didn’t, so thanks Dan. After watching it I quickly jumped on eBay and searched for one , just to see how many are still out there whoa there’s heaps, that’s scary.
Thanks, have a Kestal on the wall of my shop, truly loved that bike but one-inch steer tube…look at it and feel fortunate defect was found in shop first !
Thanks for this Dan, I'm restoring an old 1989 Japanese road bike I raced in the early 1990s, so 35 year old bike you've made me think a bit more about checking not only the parts on it a bit more carefully (especially anything involving the head stem) but also what to look out for when I buy better old parts to replace worse old parts.
In 41 years of racing and riding, I’ve only had two components fail. Back in the mid 80’s, a 26.4 Cinelli bar failed at the Ferrell (of course, this was after around 10 plus crashes). Six years ago, I had a non drive side 7800 crank arm fail, while sprinting. Yes, busted ribs.
I’ve also raced and trained for 40+ years, and at 6’5”, I generate a bit more force than the average rider…over the years I’ve gathered a long list of broken items…5 frames, 2 stems, 2crank arms, a blown apart cassette, numerous saddle rails, bent seat posts, many snapped pedal spindles and an incredible number of wheelsets. Not to mention that I go through chains, cassettes and bottom brackets more often than smaller folks!
i had a downtube break on me once and it felt like a rear puncture. i looked down on the rear wheel only to find a fist-sized gap between the separated parts of tube. i must have spent some 20 seconds to very carefully slow down and walked the bike home. this was caused by rust and spirited riding, a sharp turn on tarmac was enough to snap it in two
the fork had a columbus badge, but no such marking on the frame. it was lugged steel and very thin tubes but the problem was years of neglect and rust@@bradford_shaun_murray city errands single speed road bike
Thanks DAN.Happened to me,fortunatly at near walking pace,on a standard stem. Maybe I over tightened,or that 0.2 mm difference in bar diameter was not checked. My mum would've said of you...''he should be on telly''.Oh,you are!😉
Damn the stem, full speed ahead! I am not tracking any death stems but given my extensive bicycle collection, I’ve devised a spreadsheet to monitor inspections and all pertinent inspection points for each bicycle. Bicycles that are used annually undergo an annual inspection. Those that I ride infrequently are thoroughly inspected before each ride and the details are recorded in the spreadsheet. As I spend most of my time living abroad, the majority of my bicycles are not used on a yearly basis. For example, my 1983 Miyata Pro and Teams haven't been ridden in over 3 years. The two bikes that get used each week, my carbon BMC CX01 (daily driver) and steel Tesch S-22 (special, fun rides), get routinely inspected, if for no other reason, I just enjoy fussing with my bikes and have too much free time, LOL.
Funnily enough when researching for this video I saw a lawsuit against ITM for failed ITM Big One stems as fitted to Pantani Replicas.... I rode mine a few more times before I just had to change the stem... Dan
I have an early 70's Peugeot that came with AVA stem and handlebars, I agree with the lack of stress relief making them more fragile but I think the biggest problem was people raising the stem higher in the head tube to get a more upright riding position
GREAT EXPLANATION DAN! Your explanation and warning is on the bicycle components is on the money. Defects in design is one thing, stress from an accident is another, but everything wears down to failure. Racing products are designed to make it through a race, not last 30 years. But look at a Raleigh Sport, a commuter bike with the Sturmey-Archer 3 speed hub from the 1960's. They are still around here in the states. We replace worn out parts but they were designed to be servicable and last. Cyclist need do like Dan says, 'If in doubt, swap it out!'
Appreciate the comment - some fail by design, some just bad luck - though if you watch the "antique bike" vidieo you`ll see a Sturmey Archer hub fail, jam and try and through me in a ditch... Dan
I like the Deda Superleggero stems…simple design fits well with a vintage steel frame build, reliable, safe…plus anything tagged Superleggero has to be cool right? Good segment Dan, safety first.
I'm in my 60s and have been cycling nearly 50 years. Steel frames breaking? Never happened to me, but I was told as a teenager to avoid frames made from 531 superlight. 753 when introduced had a reputation for breaking. Raleigh were building 6 frames for each rider on the TI-Raleigh team for the start of each season. The frames were replaced on a one for one basis as they broke. I have seen dropouts crack and need replacing. More common with the original Campag dropouts. Depends on the weight/style of riding/power output of the rider. Anyone renovating a steel frame should use a frame saver spray internally before building up with components. Never seen cracking around the frame lugs. That is due to stress risers being created by the frame builder, or too much heat being applied in the brazing process. Cranks. Stronglight 49D cranks had a reputation for cracking. A clubmate used them extensively and was replacing them every couple of years. Once the cracks became visible, he changed them. The bike was in daily use and he reckoned salt was a contributing factor. Never ridden aluminium frames or carbon. I know someone who ended up in a wheelchair paralyzed from the waist down after an Alan frame broke in a race. The Vitus 979 alloy frames were terrible for breaking too. I know a pro rider who raced on them on the continent and broke 13 in one season. Like 753, they are wall art. I would also be very wary of any bonded tubed frame, as the bonding agent will fail through time.
Never used 853. However, given 853 is stainless, should mean that it is more resistant to corrosion. However, there were initial problems with framebuilders learning to work with the new material, which were quickly overcome. I have not heard of frame breakages and as it is stainless, the act of heating the steel should make it harder, unlike 753 which became embrittled and was a less forgiving material. A stronger frame is a relative term. Reynolds 531 introduced in 1935, was used for a long time and frame builders were familiar with it. If it is was over heated at a lug during brazing, the tube would deform and become brittle and likely to fail. Accles & Pollock tubing became stronger if over heated and was a more forgiving frame material. Most Reynolds tubesets now share the same properties and Reynolds heralded this as a big thing at the time. They weren't the first to come up with the idea. If a steel frame is built correctly and no stress risers created by the builder in manufacture, it should do the job it was built to do and not fail. The choice of frame tubing should be really about intended use, ride quality, handling characteristics, given the frame angles, fork rake, bottom bracket height and wheelbase. It is a conversation that few modern cyclists could have, discussing frame geometry, as they only understand, small medium and large frames, unlike cyclists from club cycling over 40 years ago.@@bradford_shaun_murray
@@chrisjackson9978 I did some reading and yeah seems 753 (manganese moly) when heat treated has to be joined with care and the temp pretty low using silver. 853 increases in strength as frame cools, the air hardening property of 853 provides added strength through reduced micro yielding at the joints allow a stiffer frame with excellent strength. The above here was off Bike Forums and a guy called Scooper seemed to be quoting from a Reynolds publication.
Yes, the longer the length the stress would go up in a bell curve (theres some match somewhere about this) - though I`d still have a restless night if I rode a 100mm... Dan@@dennisspors7530
No necessarily a failure so much as a design flaw if adjusted to full extension was the Look adjustable stem. Heavy , expensive and not really worth it to ride everyday, but the Pros rode them in the day for 2 years.
Im one of those people that was into BMX when they first came out in the 80's. Cro-mo was the thing back then but ive not had a frame ive not snapped multiple times, One piece cranks were tough but they also snap with a big heavy landing, Skyway flight crank was tough, Never snapped that. Never had a set of spoked wheels last longer than six months but the original Skyway tough wheels with the alloy hub worked great, They got pinched before i killed them off. Those 4 bolt clamp stems SR made were tough, They took some serious abuse and ive never has one fail where as the newer clamp onto stem and bars..... Utter rubbish, Ive snapped every one i used. But, without all these breaks i'd not have learnt to weld. lol
I had a Super Record RH 172.5 crank a 1980s period break at the pedal spindle. Dumping me on the ground going uphill. All I got was a bruised knee guess I got lucky.
yep, few years ago I had a cleat let go (to be fair to the cleat it was well used and should have been changed sometime before) - dumped me onto a soft grass verge without a hint of damage apart from my pride, Dan
I had a 1999 Bianchi xl ev 2. Rode it for a year, hung the frameset on a wall in my garage and after 3 years i noticed a 50 mm vertical split on the seatube. I binned it
Yep, I love the way those ally Bianchi`s ride but they are really prone to cracking - though they don`t tend to just let go so you can usually spot any issues long before they fail, Dan
I have the Modollo stem. I haven't used it for a long time but did use it for a long time. I was concerned about snapping but stopped using it because it was very flexy.
Wow. I still have one of those Modolo stems i think.. It was really neat. Came with different colours of plastic inserts. But then we all switched to 'open' stems where you could bolt the steerer on and off. I never knew there was recall.
I was riding a Tange steel fork in the early 90s. I kept hearing a creaking sound when I stood up on the pedals, for more than a year. I had a Cinelli stem and bars and I kept focusing on them. Then during a ride I felt my bike pulling to the right. Being a mechanic I stopped and checked the headset for play - none. I held the front wheel between my legs and twisted the handlebars back and forth as hard as I could - nothing unusual. I removed the front wheel, a friend of mine grabbed the rear wheel, I put my feet on the BB shell and pulled the fork blades as hard as I could (towards me - forward) - Nothing. I put the wheel back on and in less than 200 meters my steerer tube snapped off, back to front. The tube cracked from back to front and the last bit holding the fork together was right above the front brake. I believe that the steerer tube had been overheated and embrittled during manufacturing, it was a fluke. The replacement fork was a Tange and I never doubted its reliability. I have purchased a Serotta colorado concept from Craigslist. I felt the downtube next to the headtube lug for bulges. I looked for stress cracks in the paint. I looked at the overall condition of the bike and for signs of a crash. I listened to how the owner answered my questions. I rode the bike hands free. I looked down the steerer tube and seat tube with a flashlight/torch.This bike has a 1" steerer tube and old technology. When I got home I stripped that bike down to the bear frame and forked and looked at everything. I paid $800 for a complete bike and got the best deal of my life. I CANNOT RECOMMEND PEOPLE BUYING USED CONTEMPORARY BICYCLES ON THE INTERNET. There are several channels on youtube where professional engineers will tell you that you cannot visually inspect carbon fiber for manufacturing or impact damage. Carbon fibers can snap internally and after time additional fibers will fail and then the epoxy resin will fail catastrophically; and you too will be looking up from the road wondering what happened. Ultrasound is the only practical way to determine if carbon fiber has been damaged in an accident. I am currently employed as a mechanic and who do I and my boss learn from engineers who ride. We ask them questions all of the time. If Machiavelli was an amateur racer and he crashed hard on his $12,000 bicycle and it still looked good, he would sell it online and buy a new one that he could trust not to fail. All the glitters online is not virtuous. And there are counterfeit bikes and components in the market I have a friend of mine had an aluminum threadless 1 1/8 stem that cracked diagonally into two. He purchased the bike on the internet. I had a profile handlebar with a 26.0 mm handlebar clamp diameter that failed catastrophically and I was left holding one side of my bars. Two years before a friend and former teammate warned me that those handlebars were prone to failure. He is an engineer and I ignored him. This is why the clamp area of handlebars increased to 31.8mm. This is so there is no stress-riser and the flexing of the bar is transferred evenly from the smaller diameter flexing gradually to the stiff juncture of the stem-bar connection. Watch a race from the 60s or 70s. The guys get up after a crash and straighten their handlebars and then keep racing. Now many racers have to wait for the team vehicle to bring them a new bike. All teams are doing this. I own a carbon fiber bicycle. The first thing I did was buy a calibrated torque wrench so I could work on my own bike at home.
I've only had one stem fail but I know what you mean. It was a Selcof stem which the face plate broke and made me loose control of the bike. I was lucky because I didn't go down and was able to stop but it was like riding with no handlbars just one hand on the top tube and one on the brake lever. It did get covered under warranty because I used a torque wrench to clamp the faceplate to the recommended torque. So it was caused by cheap aluminum manufacturing.
SOME (not all) of those failures back in the day were because people were overtightening stuff or not installing things properly. Things weren't standardized much so not all components were a nice fit with their counterparts. These days, manufacturers specify torque settings and things are a bit more universal, made with much less variance, although you sometimes see issues with the more proprietary bars & seatposts. Furthermore, everyone running 20mm tyres at 120PSI+ probably wasn't great for vibration.
Yep, overtightening can be a real issue - recommended torque settings really help (though I can`t use modern Zipp stems as the creak like mad at anything but over-torqued settings - tried 3 of them before I just gave up and went to Deda... Dan
A friend of mine had a Ringle "Moby" seat post snap on him back in the mid 1990s. It was on a level but winding trail section in the Don Valley. He said he was just leaning into a tight turn when it snapped. It gashed his thigh open. The doctor who stitched him up in the ER told him, if the cut in his leg had been half an inch farther to the back, he would have likely bled to death before getting help. Half an inch, like 10° more through a pedal stroke.
Just cooling down from a ride, sitting back, off the bars when my beautiful alloy 7410 dura ace seat post failed, hard landing. zero warning. That HURT!
People forget that crashed carbon or aluminium parts should be considered scrap, even if they look ok. Delamination or cracking isn’t always visible, especially in aluminium
@@vintagevelos9517 I raced on an Aerospace successfully for years, not with the death fork tho. The Viscount Aerospace lugless is a great frame , the Lambert was heavier I think, it might be that there was different builds and models within the Aerospace range. I have a later lugged one that is nice to ride but my god it has very springy forks, to the point of being scary.
The fact the first two versions got to manufacture is staggering. The third version where the steerer tube went all the way through is still bad, but a lot less critical. I’d ride the mk3 version if it were a short pub or cafe run with no significant descents or even any significant speed.
"You'll never put out the power of a Mathieu Vanderpoel"...Conversely, Vanderpoel won't be trying to clean off a part from a bin after it's been ridden for 15 years, clean it off and use it on a resto-mod bike.
Man, forgot about those carbon Spinergie`s - I love them, but the risk of fingers chopped off in an accident or just total collapse has always kept me off them, Dan
Yep, same this end - just swopped out an ITM Big One thats prone to shearing at the welds and an ovetightened Cinelli stem (confession - it was me that overtightened it...) Dan
People have been very quick to dub carbon bars as dangerous, but it’s a bit of a misconception. Yes, you are probably more likely to have a carbon bar break, but the odds of that can be greatly influenced by design (not just cost) the difference being that if an aluminium bar or stem fails, it is likely to detach completely, where as due to the fibres inside carbon fibre it goes floppy and spongey - bad but unlikely to be catastrophic. Look at videos where people have deliberately broken carbon bars, while it’s absolutely possible to break the bar it’s very difficult to actually detach the failed part unless the result of an accidental, IMHO the integrated cockpit is better as with a separate bar and stem there is a natural stress concentration where the stem clamps the bar, especially if you get out of the saddle a lot. Also avoid anything with tight radius curves, as these are stress risers.
