Monday, October 15, 2007

Cheap Weight Tip #11: Flip and Chop



This tip comes from Joshua F:

"Cycling is a vain sport. This tip will work if you can get over that....

Measure your current position. Now, remove some spacers and flip your stem over so it is angled up instead of down and put your handlebar is in the original position. Now you are free to cut off the excess steerer and save those spacers for your next bike.

On my current bike I figure I saved 10-15mm on a -6 degree 120mm stem. Weight savings can vary because of the materials. Carbon is a bit lighter than aluminum for spacers but they're close enough to say that it's .5 grams for every millimeter. I'm not quite sure the weight of steerer tube per millimeter but I imagine about the same for carbon, a bit more for aluminum."

Other people sent this tip in, but none put it as perfectly as Joshua did. He especially hit it on the head with his first sentence, "Cycling is a vain sport, this tip will work if you can get over that." This tip will not get used by most people, because most people like the look of the stem horizontal to the ground.

If you have a weight tip email it to me at plusonelap at gmail dot com

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