I suppose we all have those lapses of concentration every now and then, but this one was costly!
I don't have a lot of cash so was pretty excited to be able to get a £60+ OS Sunline stem and a set of flat bars to finish of my much loved bike. The clamp bolts on my old Raceface stem require torquing to over 12Nm (which is a fair old whack) so I was a bit suprised, after hunting for instruction with the stem (there weren't any) to find stamped on the bottom of the stem in tiny letters 'torque bolts to 8Nm'. I though this seemed a little low but the bolts were thinner M5s. I'm very careful with bolt tightening and use a torque wrench so was suprise and panic stricken when one of the stem clamp bolts sheared off with a bang. I tried carefully to drill out the remains of the bolt but it was pretty hard and I ended up screwing up the thread and rendering the stem useless; I'm also left with a £40 set of oversize bars and nothing to do with them.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, on closer inspection the tiny writing I thought said 8Nm actually turned out to say 6!
I can't really complain (although clearly printed instructions would have been nice) as it was entirely my own fault and hamfistedness, but I'm gutted nethertheless. I'll have to make do with my old stem and bars for the foreseeable future.
