Terrible One “Cyclops” Stem Prototype!

Basically this stem came about coz I was sick of hearing about kids pinching the rear of their stem’s together, not that everyone does this but I just have this problem where my brain tries to come up with idea’s or solutions for stuff that’s maybe not working too well…What a concept huh?.
Now, although I am a fan of the technology behind the elementary stem I was never a fan of how it looks as well as the fact that it has a straight out rise, no up or down adjustability, but the wedge feature was something that I thought could be utilized some other way on a stem. I also thought that the Demolition stem looked ok but I always thought that the system they use with the sideways radiused wedges that clamp around the steer tube would not hold longterm or if the bars got jammed sideways from crashing or falling it would eventually give out. So after seeing the success of the elementary stem I came up with this vertical wedge idea (I’m sure kids are gonna say it’s been done before which I’m sure it probably has), it’s pretty basic: Two vertical opposing removable wedges that can be changed depending on which way the stem is on your bike to make sure the allen head is always on top (upside down or right side up).

 

Two opposing wedges that are radiused vertically to accommodate the steertubes tubing that move toward the steertube once the allen head bolt is tightened, check the pics:-

Originally I wanted to do the wedges at the rear of the stem so that we could take material out of the body of the stem but after having Phil Wasson of “Super Rat Machine” start working on it he quickly realized that it’d probably be pretty ugly as well as not really having enough material on the back of the stem to make it happen, he still managed to shave material in all the right places. Phil also came up with a really cool simple idea of making an internal bridge that the single bolt feeds through from one wedge to the other so when you take your stem off that the wedges don’t fall out (especially good for dudes that travel a lot).
Bottom line with this thing: The T1 stem had to look halfway decent right side up or upside down.

Upside down it has a the rise & reach of a regular frontload stem like a redneck or Coalition & right side up it still looks decent with the rise & reach of any regular top load stem, the bolts had to be easily accessible to clamp the bars & steertube & Joe was adamant about making sure that it had the double bar clamp like the frontload Coalition stem as this was something he liked very much as well as being a good weight saving measure.

It comes in at 9 ounces, & that’s with regular not titanium or hollow bolts. A few changes here & there & we should be good to go.
- Povah