Aheadset - is it REALLY a benefit?

Here's one Aheadset stem I found that's a fairly clean design and gives some wiggle height adjustment even if the steerer is a bit short.

Bats":3vgd9hq4 said:

Aheadset is crap.

Theoretically, it can be lighter, but that's only when you're spending £££ on every component to become the ultimate weight weenie.

On a normal bike at a price mere mortals can afford, all you've done is make finely adjusting handlebar height impossible. Well done, you're oh so modern. Shame every slight tweak requires forking out £10 for a new stem.

Bloody stupid things that should never have been allowed to propagate.

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I've got an Ahead system on my CX bike and it works perfectly well, but there are no clear advantages in terms of my own cycling needs. Both of my road bikes are on threaded stems; I deliberately kept the threaded fork on the race bike as my previous road frame did have a threadless fork and left me little room to tinker with handlebar height.

My touring/commuting bike has a cheapo FSA threaded steel headset which, interestingly, has needed no adjustment in almost 3 months of intensive use since I fitted the thing!

David

Woz":gdt9nw4b said:

Here's one Aheadset stem I found that's a fairly clean design and gives some wiggle height adjustment even if the steerer is a bit short.

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That's pretty neat, actually. My cross bike has the Ahead version of the ITM Eclypse and doesn't look bad at all.

David

It's unusual for me not to be a retro grouch, but as a tourer aheadset is much better. It can be set up and adjusted with the usual allen keys and not two huge and otherwise useless spanners...I did use one as a frying tool to turn the bacon though.

The stack of spacers does look ugly though, especially those above the stem.

Although its not an everyday task the one thing that an ahead setup give you is the ease of swapping stems especially on a road bike. Nothing worse that knowing you got to unwrap the tape and rewrap when you've finished on a normal stem. There are the odd exceptions like the Deda Murex but not enough quill stems have an open face plate. Not for the purists either but I'd like to have the option of an OS version of the Deda Murex so I could use modern shallow drop bars.

Woz":xm5c3u2f said:

I think the introduction of Aheadset on road bikes was more from an economy point of view from the manufacturers and made things simple for bike shops rather than it being a technical necessity (like 1 1/8 forks too).

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1 1/2 tapered setups on modern road bikes make them track much better apparently :roll: . I've not seen mention of the aero benefit though

Quill for me means i can range out further, i've no shame sliding it up for a more sit & beg position, it's not as if i can't still smash another 50 out via that position and not as if i can't slide it down for quick 20miles of cardio. Never had a mavic headset come loose once it's over it's settling in period and lots of nice shorter steerer tubed forks are available.