Fixing Crappy Stems
You’ll notice on the Davidson MkV (“mark five”) that in the TT mode the aerobar is fitted to a steeply negative stem. Most people who buy this stem run position in an angled-up attitude, but I have it down 35 degrees. To my chagrin I discovered that the face of the steerer clamp was not even, causing the King InSet internal headset to bind. I suppose a $185 Deda Zero100 Pista stem would be more precisely made than this $25 piece of crap, but I’m not willing to part with the cash. So I mounted the stem on a 1-1/8” steel tube, chucked it onto the lathe, and faced it myself. I just shaved a little metal off the clamp until it was uniform. Voila! Of course, you can’t even see what I did when the stem is installed, but the devil is in the details.
