The_Joe

Hello all,

So, I'm building up an old steel frame with modern Shimano parts and I'd like to get an actual fit done for it. My concern is the difficulty of setting bar position on a bike with a quill stem.
Do any of you experienced fitters have suggestions? I plan on calling the shop ahead of time and seeing what they'd say. My thinking is I can buy a few cheap Kalloy quill stems in various sizes and just throw my brake levers on without cables or tape. That way we can kinda sorta swap stems if needed. Thoughts?

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Kontact 

Many fitters have adjustable stems that clamp onto 1 1/8" steerer tubes. If the fitter had one you'd only need a cheap quill-to-threadless adapter to mount it. It would also work with the fitter's standard threadless stems. Either way, bring a threadless adapter.

The_Joe

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Thank you! This is exactly the kind of info I was looking for.

mikeonbicycle

I have retro steel bike and was having trouble finding the right 1inch steerer stem or goosenecks as they are known,my solution was getting an older one of a retro mountain bike,on those bikes they did longer stems,higher stems so you can get the correct reach,they are chrome moly stems so just repaint them,i dont trust alloy 1 inch steerer stems

Kontact 

You don't trust stems made like cranks, but you do trust the little welds on steel stems?

mikeonbicycle

I have all alloy parts on my old steel bike,just not that gooseneck,i have seen a few snap in half over the years,if normal riding on rode bike they will most likely be fine,but if you commute around town alot and carry shopping etc over your bars or touring bike then chromemoly gooseneck is a safe bet,thats the reason why they were used on early mountain bikes as they never broke,i might be a bit paranoid about it but i know these chromemoly goosenecks wont ever let me down,if a crank or somthing else on bike breaks its no big deal,if that gooseneck breaks its not going to end well

Iride01 

I had a 1991 Schwinn Paramount frame that I put all Shimano 105 5800 on back circa 2017. I used a alloy threadless adapter and it worked well in the threaded steerer tube. They really aren't any different than using a quill stem. But they allow you to easily change the stem length without having to strip your handlebars of tape and shifters.

There shouldn't be any concern at all for it snapping if you buy a decent popular brand that's been around for a while. However it seems that some want to add height to their bars by using obscenely long threaded adapters. And that does amplify the pulling and pushing forces on the bars that gets concentrated at the point where the adapter or even a really tall quill stem will enter the headset.

So if you find that the bike isn't giving you the correct height of the bars without such grossly overly long stuff, then you have the wrong size frame.

Kontact 

Alloy quill stems are normal. If yours are breaking, they probably weren't installed correctly.

nomadmax 

He said gooseneck.