stainless is also not as strong. not really a huge consideration here but i’ve had a one-bolt seat mast cap thingy that literally couldn’t get tight enough with a stainless bolt. wouldn’t tolerate enough preload. was also a very not-great design but a high alloy bolt took care of it- achieved enough preload before deforming too much
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Agreed, and bolt stretch is a real thing. Although I’ve only seen it with M5 and M6 bolts on bike stuff.
I’ve seen some gnarly mill hardware fail in the 1/2”-13 variety. Like dudes way over torquing a stud for a tie clamp and having it stretch and twist a quarter turn. Also seen them completely fail in the same manner.
Would bolt stretch ever happen on a stem faceplate, though? Seems like the faceplate or bars would give way before a steel bolt stretched.
Sure, especially if one side is really loose and the faceplate is against the stem on the one you’re trying to tighten.
Another plus of steel over stainless is less likely to strip the hex broach.
That plus higher strength means smaller screws could be used, less weight and also looks better.
I always liked the look and feel of those ritchey stem bolts with the tapered socket head.
i mean sure- that’s how bolts work. keep in mind that the preload on these bolts will change during spirited riding, and there’s a difference between “stretching” elastically (the bolt is a spring that is under tension) and plastically (you pulled the spring too far and now your slinky sucks to play with and maybe could get someone hurt if part of a safety critical assembly)
my hunch is that this in some way changes the safety factor of the design in a way that makes it safer at a given weight.
fun fact- one of the most common reasons for “self” loosening of bolted joints is using bolts that are too thicc. sometimes you need that cross section to support in shear, but if you can’t make the bolt stretch at all you haven’t really preloaded the joint.
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Also, stem bolts are pretty low torque.
Interesting. TIL.
according to fastenal 58 in lb is tightening torque for lubricated class 10.9 m5 bolt. so ~6.5nm. closer to 4.5 for a lubricated 8.8 m5. id guess a stem bolt to be one of those two.
here’s where the fun begins and my understanding of what it all means immediately breaks the fuck down. a lubricated m5 bolt tightened to about 5nm exerts something like 1500 pounds force axial clamp load. not sure what to do with that in relation to things one would actually do, but it sounds goddamned impressive
Merry Sales is getting out of hand. Moss green sounds great, though.
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excellent analogy 
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Wow they really raised the price, I guess that means they’ll be having sale soon
Was Evan Bacon their web store dev?
their old web store dev was billionaire shithead Paul Graham in the mid 90s
he sold it to Yahoo in 1998 who never changed it, and Merry Sales was still using it until this
I remember buying shit from stores with that platform…18 years ago. Do any sites still use it?
Based on buying stuff from Yahoo shopping sites long ago, it feels like a serious downgrade.
The web shop software they’re using is hideously ugly. Reminds me of shopping weird drop shipping websites for boring store maintenance parts.
Bike Insights interview, I really liked this
Tldr: All bikes are crosschecks
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With differently measured geometries
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