nitto track drops and thomson

[Alexi]

anyone use a nitto track drop in cromo with a thomson stem? getting mixed messages on weather or not the stem clamp is to wide to clamp onto the nitto sleave

[Too Tall]

What's love got to do with it?

[11.4]

You can use a Nitto alloy bar (which has a wider sleeve) with a Thomson Elite 25.4 stem and it works fine. If you try this with a Nitto steel bar, the sleeve is much narrower plus it tends not to be as round as the alloy. You will have trouble getting rid of wobble and the pressure bearing on the stem faceplate is quite localized so I wouldn't want to trust it at all.

If you want to use a steel Nitto with a threadless stem, the only safe combinations we've found at the track have been the Nitto CT-80 cromo stems, which are superb, and the older steel Salsa threadless stems. The latter are cheap on eBay but the Nitto works beautifully. It only comes in 90 degree, however.

What length/rise/steer clamp size do you want?

[Alexi]

A little background:

building up a few track bikes for the ride club we do with high school kids, and this is just in the planning phase. We get a good price on thomson stuff, and the cheapest track bars we can get are the nittos so this was going to be the plan...

[Fixed]

11.4 is a guru imho
cheers

[Grant McLean]

the soma track bar is likely a better choice if you want a steel bar,
that's cheap, and works with a thomson.

http://www.somafab.com/bar456.html


-g

[Alexi]

yeah I wish I could do soma, but we don't do merry sales in the shop

[Fixed]

grant 's a magician

[jtferraro]

Alexi,

I realize I'm not quite answering your question, but I'm using a nitto track drop in ALLOY with a thomson stem (25.4) w/o any issues. I think the stem looks a little chunky for the bike (steel) but didn't want to use a shim and couldn't find another 1 1/8" threadless stem w/25.4 clamp. I later realized Soma does make said stem, but it's sandblasted silver and I was looking for a shiny/pearl to match the nitto bar, plus I was already using a Thomson post. I also figured the 'chunkiness' of the stem would be offset if I simply install my 32C silver/gray Vittoria cross tires.

Anyway, here's a few pics - just scroll down to the Milwaukee Orange One.
http://forums.roadbikereview.com/showthread.php?t=105&page=14