The bloody french

[simplesi]

Hi Picked up Mk1 Vitus 979 which has a french BB and headset, which I've sourced the parts for.

Just tried the quill of the Cinelli stem in the Steerer and it's a bit big, or is this another French oddity.

The stem is around 22.2mm and the steerer around 22mm am i right or is the steerer damaged?

thanks in advance

Simon

 

[Midlife]

Maybe FINNEY is about, I think he's building one and seems to know them inside out

Shaun

 

[xxnick1975]

Re:

French special

 

[one-eyed_jim]

French steerers are metric: 25mm external, 22mm internal. You need a 22mm quill stem.

You might find something suitable on ebay.fr - French for stem is "potence".

http://tinyurl.com/oa2v3vh

Sheldon Brown has a good summary of French standards here:

http://sheldonbrown.com/velos.html

 

[simplesi]

Re:

Thanks for the info, time to start looking for a 22mm stem then

I found this Cinelli 1r where i got my headset from http://www.cyclollector.com/gb/stems/83 ... li-1r.html,

Velobase mentioned slipping, any thing to worry about.

I measured the Giro d'italia bars and its a 26.4 clamp.

 

[dirttorpedo]

Re:

This thread is why I steer clear of old Italian and French bikes. Give me a good ole Japanese, English or American bike any day.

 

[Gazelleer]

Re:

French sized (22.0 mm) Cinelli stems have a "dot": http://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vintage/767138-french-cinelli-stem-trouble.html#post13209176

 

[foz]

You could always look for an english threaded fork, which would eliminate the problem of both french headset and french stem. In practice though it's not much of a problem - all non-threaded parts of an french headset are interchangeable with english threaded headsets, so you really only need the top cup and nut. Depending on the tolerance of both steerer and stem then a 22.2mm stem will fit, just. Some sanding of the stem to reduce the diameter a bit will help.

 

[z979]

I agree with Foz, you can sand a 22.2 stem down to 22 without too much trouble.