Hi all, - hope this is the right place for such a question.
The bar is a new Azonic "Strip Bar" and the stem is a new IRD "Interloc F4 riser". The bar has pretty extreme knurls that remind me of old-school bars made to go into a cheap steel single-bolt quill stem. I didn't realize this when I ordered it and probably would have passed it by had I known. The knurling doesn't quite go to the edge of the clamp so if you look from the side (not shown in pics) the clamp doesn't appear to quite touch the bars, but obviously, it's contacting the knurled area. Maybe this bar was intended to go into a super burly downhill stem that could crush that knurling down flatter - I don't know. When I put a "normal" bar in the stem, the clamp comes down evenly.
As you can see from the photos (top, bottom, and general view), the clamp doesn't clamp down evenly - about 1mm of difference from side to side. It seemed pretty obvious as I was installing it that the knurling isn't even and that was the cause. I "torqued" down the clamp in gradual steps with a criss-cross pattern per norm. I would call it "tightly snugged" but not quite so far as "tight" - as if that's really 'spozed to tell you a whole lot. As you can guess, no, I did not use a torque wrench. I'm not particularly ham-fisted and have a pretty good feel for such things especially in aluminum, but yeah, consider torque an unknown in your consideration. I have no way of knowing where and how much contact area the clamp is getting, but when I put this together, I pretty much expected it to loosen up over time as the knurling flattened out a little. But as it is, I haven't ridden it yet and this question is holding up the last of my build.
Ok, sorry for all the build-up but I wanted to give you every detail I knew. These are the actual questions I have for you all:
Would you just ride this as is, not worry about it, and just tighten it if it comes loose? I don't care about the looks.
Would you take the bars out and try and file the knurling flatter/smoother? I'm dubious about the effectiveness of this myself but it might buy a little more evenness and contact area for the clamp especially if I find an obvious high side.
Would you just buy a new bar with the normal "light" knurling?
Would you *also* buy a new stem clamp because you feel that I may have damaged or weakened the clamp by tightening it down like it is now? This is kinda the real biggie for me and prompted this post. It's a relatively cheap stem and I probably won't be able to buy a new clamp alone anyway. But I'll do that if you think it will snap as a result of what I've done here. I can't really tell if the clamp has been flexed.
Ok, sorry for writing a freakin' book about this but you now know everything I know. Oh yeah, this bike is an Access XCL hardtail w/3" fork intended for "aggressive XC" which to me means it will see up to 2' drops (at worst) with *smooth* landings.
I realize that last sentence may take this thread in a whole new direction but I appreciate all opinions. Thanks!
The bar is a new Azonic "Strip Bar" and the stem is a new IRD "Interloc F4 riser". The bar has pretty extreme knurls that remind me of old-school bars made to go into a cheap steel single-bolt quill stem. I didn't realize this when I ordered it and probably would have passed it by had I known. The knurling doesn't quite go to the edge of the clamp so if you look from the side (not shown in pics) the clamp doesn't appear to quite touch the bars, but obviously, it's contacting the knurled area. Maybe this bar was intended to go into a super burly downhill stem that could crush that knurling down flatter - I don't know. When I put a "normal" bar in the stem, the clamp comes down evenly.
As you can see from the photos (top, bottom, and general view), the clamp doesn't clamp down evenly - about 1mm of difference from side to side. It seemed pretty obvious as I was installing it that the knurling isn't even and that was the cause. I "torqued" down the clamp in gradual steps with a criss-cross pattern per norm. I would call it "tightly snugged" but not quite so far as "tight" - as if that's really 'spozed to tell you a whole lot. As you can guess, no, I did not use a torque wrench. I'm not particularly ham-fisted and have a pretty good feel for such things especially in aluminum, but yeah, consider torque an unknown in your consideration. I have no way of knowing where and how much contact area the clamp is getting, but when I put this together, I pretty much expected it to loosen up over time as the knurling flattened out a little. But as it is, I haven't ridden it yet and this question is holding up the last of my build.
Ok, sorry for all the build-up but I wanted to give you every detail I knew. These are the actual questions I have for you all:
Would you just ride this as is, not worry about it, and just tighten it if it comes loose? I don't care about the looks.
Would you take the bars out and try and file the knurling flatter/smoother? I'm dubious about the effectiveness of this myself but it might buy a little more evenness and contact area for the clamp especially if I find an obvious high side.
Would you just buy a new bar with the normal "light" knurling?
Would you *also* buy a new stem clamp because you feel that I may have damaged or weakened the clamp by tightening it down like it is now? This is kinda the real biggie for me and prompted this post. It's a relatively cheap stem and I probably won't be able to buy a new clamp alone anyway. But I'll do that if you think it will snap as a result of what I've done here. I can't really tell if the clamp has been flexed.
Ok, sorry for writing a freakin' book about this but you now know everything I know. Oh yeah, this bike is an Access XCL hardtail w/3" fork intended for "aggressive XC" which to me means it will see up to 2' drops (at worst) with *smooth* landings.
I realize that last sentence may take this thread in a whole new direction but I appreciate all opinions. Thanks!