Hello,

There was a bit of guesswork involved tightening the steerer clamp on this stem, do these bolts look like they’re pinching?

I haven’t over-tightened, but looks a little odd maybe or maybe not. Each stem is different after all.

It’s a raceface turbine stem.

Cheers!

Bike could use a clean.

But I’d say yes, they do to me. Particularly so in the last picture.

Never mind the bolts…

• Top cap at skewed angle – logo needs to be pointing to the front or back!
• Top spacer upside down!

…where’s your sense of style man!

If you grip the front wheel between your knees and wrench the bars do they rotate on the steerer?

If they don’t it’s probably tight enough.

If, like me, you also burn your calf on a hot disk rotor try to remember not to do it at the bottom of a steep downhill next time.

If you grip the front wheel between your knees and wrench the bars do they rotate on the steerer?

I could the first time I put the stem on, so nipped it up ever so slightly, and now it doesn’t. However I didn’t get to see what the stem looked like first time. I’ll undo them and have another go tonight.

They might just settle like that I guess.

I shall also give it a clean and align all logos!

Sod the outcome – why was there guesswork in tightening the stem?

Because, at a guess, he doesn’t have a torque wrench?

They do look pinched, because that’s how stem pinch bolts work.

those Ritchey preset torque keys only cost about £8 – why would anyone use guesswork ?

…although I suppose, what could go wrong after all 🙂

Meh, I’ve never owned or used a torque wrench. A bit of mechanical sympathy and common sense is all you need.

Maybe I’d use one if I had carbon bits.

I’ve had various carbon bits and still don’t use a torque wrench, I actually think they can be as much of a hindrance as a help – ‘I’ll just keep leaning on this because I’ve not reached the max torque yet…’ type mentality.

qtip – Member

Meh, I’ve never owned or used a torque wrench. A bit of mechanical sympathy and common sense is all you need.

Yep, but to be fair you tend to aquire that mechanical sympathy by breaking a bunch of parts.

‘I’ll just keep leaning on this because I’ve not reached the max torque yet…’ type mentality.

^This – yep!

I’m still more-than-partially-convinced that the reason both brake lines on my bike worked lose immediately following a service is because my LBS’s mechanical monkeys were rigidly following their torque settings manual – and not using common sense.

(Shimano had re-specced a different size allen bolt for the banjo-end in later models – hence their torque settings were probably off).

I can never prove this though…

FWIW – those bolts look fine.

Yeah, I don’t own a torque wrench that goes low enough, 8nm is the lowest I have.

I’ve never used one either on plenty of other bikes etc, just this time I couldn’t decide if they were a little off.