Internet Rummagings – The 3 Bike Esses (Shiny, Spinny, and …err… Stemmy)

Welcome to the results of this month’s rummaging around the World Wide Web’s bike shop, we’ve got shiny things, spinny things and, err stemmy things! …

By tomhoward

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Cromo is a steel alloy.

Cromo is a steel alloy.

My brow furrowed at that one too…

Nice pin colours though.

All steels are alloys…

2oomm lower BB is quite a change. I feel a little worried by the opposite change – a BB 200mm *higher*. Ouch. That’s unlikely to feel good.

How about ‘it’s a different steel alloy to the usual CroMo’ then?

Oh god, I want those yoshi pedals. I don’t even care if they’re good- their exhausts are mostly not all that great but I still wanted one of those.

@hannah A bit of info would be good. They’re not cheap pedals, so would be good to know what and why.

As rfreeman says – all steels are alloys, so it’s a very vague statement. There are different cromos 4130 being the most common, but 4140 is good for axles for example.

Yoshimura’s website says

Proprietary alloy steel CNC machined, and heat-treated spindle is strong – yet resilient

And this Pinkbike article from a couple of years ago says

Heat treated nickel-chromoly steel spindle

@sillyoldman sorry, they didn’t tell me at Sea Otter, and as @rubber_Buccaneer points out, their website doesn’t reveal the precise info. Perhaps I should just have left Tom’s words alone and not added the extra bits and pieces I got from talking to them!

Interesting discussion. It led me to revise some metallurgy, and get engrossed in a totally irrelevant rabbit hole about sulphur in steels. Anyway, those pedals are glorious, but are they as nice as Hope’s pedals? Coloured pins… want.

Out of interest, what do we all think of the idea behind the ENDH stem? As in a really low stack base plate connected to the steerer, with a direct mount stem bolted to that?

More bolts, more weight, more chance of creaks from more interfaces, and less area on the steerer supporting the load all seem like bad ideas.

Great if your steerer is too short for a conventional stem, otherwise I don’t get it.

To me the ENDH stem looks like extra complication for no benefit. I’d have to really, really want that low stack to get me out of a problem and I can’t see that happening.

I bought a set of the Chilao pedals 18 months ago….ish. At the time Yoshimura weren’t shipping outside the US so I had them shipped multiple times around the country before eventually landing with me here in the UK. They’re things of beauty.

I’ve seen them there Titan headlock / topcap arrangements, and they’re really well made, well-finished bits of kit.