Help! My wife snapped my stem in the Kalahari. | On Your Bike - Lonely Planet Forum

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Mon, 10 Aug 2015 18:42:11 +0000

Hi, we're a husband a wife from the UK currently touring Southern Africa. Taking our time to explore, we arrived in Cape Town in May, and have just reached the middle of Botswana. We also hope to include Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia and Namibia in our itinerary, before flying home from our starting point. However, last night my wife managed to break my stem in the middle of the desert, and for the time being our journey is on hold.

I'd been feeling rather stiff over the past few weeks so yesterday, after setting up camp, my wife and I decided to try and raise my stem. However, it hadn't been fiddled with for some time and had become seized. We applied oil and attempted in turn to pull and twist, but there was no reaction. After about an hour of trying, my wife, out of sheer frustration, picked up a sizable rock from the ground and gave the stem a good whack. There was a cracking sound, the stem broke around the circumference near the base, and my headset exploded.

We managed to reassemble the headset (minus one ball bearing) and to fashion a sheath for my stem from an old tin can, some jubilee clips and a little duct tape. I was just able to ride it. It was hoped that getting us to the nearest town this morning would allow me to find a replacement stem or someone to doctor a repair. No such luck! My stem is 1" diameter and the only replacements on offer (and we searched at great length) are 1-1/8". And to make matters worse, my stem is made of alloy, which makes welding it back together impossible due to the techniques available here.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Thankfully, due to the wonders of modern technology, we have some internet access so I can at least look at websites for inspiration. But unless we can resurrect my stem, I'll be forced to travel back to Gaborone, or further south, and find a replacement.

Many thanks for any tips!

Jon and Sue.

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Mon, 10 Aug 2015 20:33:55 +0000

Help! My wife snapped my stem

Try some Viagra.

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Mon, 10 Aug 2015 21:39:11 +0000

I think your attempt to make people look foolish has failed somewhat.......still it was a good tale

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Tue, 11 Aug 2015 08:04:02 +0000

The usual technique in such situations is to phone a reputable and trustworthy bike shop somewhere they have everything, be it the other side of the planet, and get them to courier it to you.

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Tue, 11 Aug 2015 11:55:32 +0000

In response to #0

If you can get the broken part out maybe you can find/ turn at engineering shop a tube of right D for an internal sleeve. You then can hold them on by grooving the outside tube and clamping it - as your seat stem. (or maybe even just gluing it). If you can"t get it out then it might still work if you find a way to hold the sleeve in the bottom half. It might be possible to get a longer one so it protrudes at the fork end and attach it there.

good luck!

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Sat, 15 Aug 2015 21:47:41 +0000

Thanks for the helpful and the not so helpful (but mildly amusing) replies.

I should have noted in my previous post that my stem is quill rather than a-head.

There was a brilliant mechanic-come-engineer-come-craftsman in the town we arrived at who adapted a locally available 1-1/8" quill stem to fit. He skilfully shaved off an outer layer so that it could be inserted into the fork/head tube. He used my old 1" nut and bolt. A hollow steel tube was added internally to strengthen the stem as I was concerned the loss of 1/8" diameter would weaken the structure. The best thing is that the replacement stem is a good 2" taller, which gives more scope for adjustment. A real bonus!

And what was I charged for the service? Nothing. I kept offering it to him, but he wouldn't take it. Such generosity! The kind gentleman gave me his post box address, his only request being that I send him a photo of me back in the saddle, riding with my wife.

Ironically, as we continued our journey and approached the next town, we rode under a banner from the local church which read, "He is risen!".

Cheers, Jon.

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Tue, 16 Aug 2016 01:00:43 +0000

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