Originally Posted by
50voltphantom
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! There are other ways. That frame deserves better.
While I appreciate your opinion, do you care to suggest a solution? A search for 1 1/8" quill stems reveals a multitude of 90° and taller stems, primarily for mountain bikes and hybrids. Not a 73° road-type angled stem in sight. I looked locally as well (used parts shops) and didn't find anything either. I'm no dummy, and have been running threadless-to-threaded adapters on 1" forks for my vintage road bikes for years. They look great (because I know how to set them up), and allow for a 31.8mm clamp diameter drop bar. I can run a standard +/-7° rise 1 1/8" threadless stem, or I can find a +/-17° one that gets the stem horizontal or angling downward slightly. I am perfectly fine being a classicist by running quill stems and have them on a number of my bikes. I do the conversions primarily for the compact drop bar profile, running 'brifters', a modernized look, and some weight reduction. I only run these conversions 'slammed' or as low as they can go--anything else, IMO, looks bad.
Exhibit A:
