"chris ioakimedes" wrote:
I bought a NOS Pivo stem to replace the original one on my 1070ish Gitane touring tandem. The original is in good shape, but I thought a NOS one would be safer. So I got it and realized that the one on the tandem is solid while the NOS one and others that I have in my bucket are hollow (tubular between the fork bolt and the handlebar bolt). Is the solid one a special tandem stem? Should I be worried about riding on a 30 year old aluminum stem?
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If indeed it is NOS, then hollow v. solid should make little difference. All the work is done by the outermost part of the body -- else we'd ride solid bar frames :-).
Storing aluminum for 30 years at ambient temperatures and w/o any load shouldn't affect its metallurgy, eh?
The question is whether the Pivo, as sold and installed back then, was something you'd want to load heavily.
harvey sachs
mcLean va