After a carbon or carbon wrap stem £60<

daniel_b

I bought one of these recently:


£46 in the CRC private sale thingy - writing on the side said to tighten it between 6-8nm, so used my newly purchased torque wrench and set it to 8nm, and it cracked it :shock:
Cannot tell how badly it has gone, but e-mailed CRC some pics, and explained the situation, and fair dues (I've always had cracking service from them) they have come back to offer a refund or a replacement.

Has anyone out there seen any carbon or carbon wrap stems out there for a similar price, or up to £60 if it's especially nice - I'm after a 70 or 80mm stem, and it's for my Felt not my commuter.

Cheers

Dan

itboffin

Must just be a defective unit, i dont have the same brand but I do have plenty of carbon stems and bars, however the only one i've broken was Aluminum.

davis

Just a thought... you did do the bolts up roughly equally first, right? I.e. you didn't just wind one up to the maximum torque setting straight off, leaving the other bolt loose?

daniel_b

itboffin wrote:

Must just be a defective unit, i dont have the same brand but I do have plenty of carbon stems and bars, however the only one i've broken was Aluminum.

Thanks for that ITB, would you go for the same again?

Has to be said, I am new to torque wrenches and to carbon components really - but I know I set the nm correctly - in hindsight I suppose I should have gone for the lowest stated.

Just seen this (Top one) which looks tempting, though not a perfect colour combo for my felt :shock:
http://www.ribblecycles.co.uk/sp/road-track-bike/deda-35-trentacinque-stem/dedahbss740

itboffin

Yeh go for the same but use carbon compound to help with the torque, tighten each bolt by hand one at a time until the slack is gone then finish with a torque wrench. Cross pattern of course for instance if you numbered the bolts 1-4 ; 1-2 at the top and 3-4 at the bottom, then i would do 1,4,2,3 half torque on each at first then full using the same pattern.

Might sound over the top but I have carbon, stem, bars, seatpost and saddle rails and none of those have slipped and none are over 6nm with carbon slip compound and i'm no Wiggo build-wise.

Obviously i'll kick his skinny arse on the road, obviously

il_principe

Just go for Alu. They are almost as light (if not lighter in some cases) and a far better bet in my book. There's a reason most of the pros stick with Alu stems - if you crash then Alu may bend whereas carbon may break...

bigmat

Carbon wrap = bling plus durable. As long as its a decent one, otherwise it can also = HEAVY!

Kind of agree with IP, its really not necessary, but it does look nice. When I get round to it I have some carbon bars to fit to my best bike having been an alloy for the past year (after I wrecked previous carbon ones in a crash). I should add though that I crashed my commuter and wrecked my alu bars - neither are immune to damage. I guess alu is generally a lot cheaper though, plus its easier to ride a bent bar than one that has snapped in two...

itboffin

I should also add that my 3T carbon bars do flex, but then unlike most cyclists I actually have upper body muscles

daniel_b

Thanks guys - I didn't explain properly, it was not the faceplate, but the two bolts where I secured it onto the forks - and I tightened them up bit by bit.

CRC are sending me out a new stem FOC, excellent customer service again.

What nm do you reckon then - 5?

I fully realise it is a bit of bling, and is probably inferior to a nice alu stem, but I am refurbing the bike, it has new carbon wheels, carbon seatpost, and carbon handlebars, so it seemed the natural thing to add the stem....

As I am fitting the carbon stem to the fork (steerer?) do I still need to use the carbon paste...?

The Rookie

Carbon paste not needed for stem to steerer, also I would use the full torque it states, sounds like you had a defective part as it should take a lot tighter than that!