Can anybody talk me down from buying a bicycle?

[mjmacky]

Also, I'm liking the Dimension raiser better as well. Two smaller bolts compared to one big one and it's black, and idk about Zoom as a brand. I've seen Zoom bars, seatposts and really shitty suspension forks fitted to very low end department store bikes, and was not impressed. But then again, the same bikes had shimano gearing, so. Dimension makes forks I've seen get good reviews, at least.


edit: Oh, andin that pic it does look a bit as if you could turn the stem upside down. But maybe it's just the angle in which it was taken.

I did order from that site. I didn't even know if it was good, but they allowed PayPal and it wasn't too steep a price to experiment.

About the Shimano components, that's the thing with brands, Intel brought to the public both the i7 and the celeron. Essentially it all tends to come down to model since fewer companies stick to a narrow spectrum.

I've taken it apart and there's nothing to turn upside down as far as the stem goes. Maybe I'm just confused about what you mean by that.

P.S. I wish I knew they were marked with the torque specifications, I haven't even bothered to instrumentally match the torque (I've just been using my allen wrenches and I'm usually pretty close to intuiting the force necessary without over-tightening and stretching the bolt).

[ckrit]

I meant the whole thing.

Basically, if the stem has an angle, like this:

Bicycle_stem_Xtasy_40256_2014_Handlebar_stem.jpg

...and it's now angled downwards, you can take the whole thing off, turn it upside down, and get it angling upwards. I'm gonna assume there isn't an angle to it, though, else you'd seen it.

Oh, and speaking of stems, if you really want to tweak stuff around until you know what's right, there are adjustable stems out there as well. They usually look something like this:

ritchey-adjustable-stem.jpg but the first one is adjustable too.

[mjmacky]

Oh yeah, no, it's a solid piece protruding in perpendicular fashion. I think my confusion was that I'm only considering the part that comes up from the fork as a stem.

[ckrit]

Oh. Yeah. Unless you've got a quill stem or something, that's all the stem there is. It clamps to the steerer tube. Or the stem raiser, when that arrives, which in turn then clamps to the steerer tube, which is part of the fork.

Quill stems, in contrast, go into the head tube (the part of the frame the fork is attached to).

Other parts of the frame are the top tube or tt (the upper tube behind the head tube), the down tube (below the tt), the seat tube (where the seatpost is attached, using the seat clamp), the bottom bracket shell (bb shell) where your cranks (also called crankset or chainset) are attached, often via a separate bb, and the stays, behind the seat tube. You probably know what's what, but just in case.

[mjmacky]

I understood only enough of that to know why they call it a stem raiser and not a stem extender. Actually, much better in song.

The fork connects to the, steerer tube
The steerer tube connects to the, stem thing
The stem thing connects to the, handle bars
The handle bars connect to the, people hands
The people hands connect to the...

[ckrit]

[Barbarossa]

Wow. If I ever suffer from insomnia I'm gonna try and remember this thread...

[ckrit]

I'm gonna remember you said that, when next you post stuff about things.

[Barbarossa]

hahahaha

Thankfully that hardly ever happens anymore...

[manker]

Wow. If I ever suffer from insomnia I'm gonna try and remember this thread...

I clicked on the new posts thing, saw mary fell off her bike and had tiny ankles but was fat.
That was entertaining.

Then Snee started posting. Snee. He usually makes threads good. Especially when they're already good to begin with (not that this one was, but idr, so.)
But he completely Artified this one.

Yet people posted in it more.
Why