Zinn Coupled Stems for Travel Bikes, for a mere $895

Get the one component most break-down travel bikes lack – a quick way to remove the handlebar. Packing a bike requires separating the handlebar from the bike, and the Zinn/KGS Coupled Travel Stem (patent pending) unscrews and comes apart in 10 seconds. It also goes back together just as fast. This is a vast convenience improvement over conventional stems.
The coupler is super secure and strong, and it is easy to get to, even with cables crisscrossing in front of the bar and computers clamped to it. In titanium, our coupled stem still only weighs 250 grams in a 110mm length with an oversized (31.8mm) handlebar clamp.
Admittedly, today’s conventional front-opening stems are a huge improvement already over single-bolt stems. A 3- or 4-bolt stem clamp makes it possible to separate the handlebar from the bike without either removing the entire stem and bar (thus requiring replacing spacers and adjusting your headset at your destination), or the even worse alternative of removing the tape or grips and the brake and shift levers and sliding the handlebar out of the (single-bolt) stem clamp. However, removing and replacing your stem’s front cap to remove and install the handlebar at the beginning and end of every trip is not only tedious and time-consuming, it can also be dangerous.
Getting at those 3 or 4 little front-cap bolts hidden behind cables and computer mounts can be a pain, and unscrewing all of them completely takes a while. Then you have to keep track of them en route, usually by screwing them back together with the cap completely, so they won’t jiggle loose in transit, thus doubling the number of times you unscrew and re-tighten them.
The nightmare scenario is that one of those many times tightening those little bolts, you will strip the threads and won’t be able to ride the bike you lugged with you on airplanes and ground transportation. Little bolts with fine threads screwed into aluminum are easily stripped, even if you are careful to not over-torque them; just doing it often weakens the threads. And not tightening them enough is also dangerous; you don’t want your handlebar flipping down suddenly the first time you slam on your brakes in an unfamiliar city.
The Zinn/KGS coupled travel stem solves all of those problems. It speeds your preparation for your trip, and it reduces the time by many minutes to get your bike on the road at your destination or back and home.


[ZINN website]

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