Wednesday, January 20, 2010

One Imperfect Thing

Tom Ritchey's eponymous brand makes some pretty nice bike components, along with innovative folding bikes that don't look like circus escapees. Ritchey components are widely-spec'd in the bike industry - they're light, functional, relatively attractive, and, (the key part for cheapskate product managers without a house brand to fall back on) - affordable.

I've had plenty of bikes with Ritchey seatposts, handlebars and stems over the years. All have performed admirably, even if they weren't labeled with the trendiest brand.

However, I'm really tired of cutting my left knee open on this:
The upper stem pinch bolt. Sure, I'm not the most-graceful rider (after all, it is kind of hard to be graceful when you're 73.5" of pure lankiness with a healthy dollop of clumsiness) but still, think of our knees spec a *slightly* shorter bolt here, Tom.

I've put a list together of the parts I want to swap out - this stem, as well another Ritchey stem on my cyclocross bike top the list.

3 comments:

  1. Hi -

    Angelo here from Ritchey Design. I stumbled upon this post and it appears that the bolt could possibly be over-tightened (beyond 5Nm).

    Please drop me an email at rd_info_line@ritcheylogic.com (Attn: Angelo), as I'd love to get more info/detail from you.

    Thanks,
    Angelo

    ReplyDelete
  2. message sent, I used a Ritchey Torque Key to tighten all hardware. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Then again, a belt sander and about 45 seconds could cure the problem too....

    Of course, I've got house brand components to fall on...erm...fall back on.

    ReplyDelete

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