Jon & List, Some Cinelli 1A's were made with a French 22mm quill. An example can be found on Velobase. The idea was to mount Italian handlebars on a French bike, so the quill diameter was French, but the clamp diameter was Italian. The French, as I understand it, were trying for pure metric dimensions rather than English-to-Metric. The English had 7/8 inch stem quills, and 1-inch handlebars, which convert to 22.2mm and 25.4mm respectively. The French said the heck with that, let's have 22mm and 25mm. The Italians apparently thought 1 inch was too small for handlebars and went to 26.4mm, and later cut back to 26mm.
I found this interesting tip from Sheldon Brown: "French stems are .2mm narrower where they fit into the steering column. A standard 7/8" / 22.2mm stem won't usually fit. In many cases, the limiting factor for fitting the stem in will be the headset locknut, rather than the steerer itself. Try removing the locknut before sanding down a stem. If the headset locknut is slightly tighter than the steerer, it can be enlarged easily with a small grinding wheel." "In cases where the stem really won't fit into the steerer, a few minutes work on the stem with sandpaper will usually do the trick. Wrap the sandpaper around the stem, grip it with your hand, and turn the stem round and round until it fits. You only need to remove 0.1 mm, which is 1/250", not much at all!" Going back to the original question, I am not up on what "deep drop" actually means; perhaps someone will chime in and clarify. French bars are 25mm, not 25.4. I've seen French-sized handlebars by a German manufacturer, Friko, the model was Super Touring, or something like, and I think they were fairly wide, and of course 25mm at the clamp. Aren't there plenty of handlebars still around that came on bike boom French bikes? John Hurley Austin, Texas, USA
Jon Spangler wrote:
I made some additional progress on building my Allegro Sunday afternoon,
before the rains returned. (Unedited pix of the bike are here:
http://www.flickr.com/
I am looking for a French stem (22.0 quill diameter) for my Allegro, but
would like to run deep-drop 42-44 CM width bars on it.
Did any of the French (25.4 MM clamp diameter) bars ever get that wide? (I loved my old Giro d' Italia Mod 66-44 Cinellis but want to give up the creaking that went with them.)
My other option is to grind down the 22.2 MM quill on an English/Italian
stem so I can go to the 26.0 clamping diameter of the more widely available (and wider) bars. I've already been there on Linda's bike with
its steel Terry stem, and have recently seen the $75 and up NOS 22.0/26.0 stems on ebay, but can't afford such (for me) astronomical prices.
Please email me off-list with any suggestions you might have.
Dickey Greer replied: Jon and list I recently put 26mm bars in a 25.4 hole French stem. I used a 1"-25.4 mm flapper sanding wheel, that was 1 1/2" long, and it took about 3 minutes. You need to stop every minute to let things cool down. It makes a straight hole and leaves no gouges to start a crack. Check often with calipers as you flap.