-
Man, exactly, I feel you... :D
Had exactly the same problem.
I believe they are not exactly 26mm but 26,05 or so, I have no idea, but it definitely should not be such a pain in the ass.
My solution: as I already mentioned earlier, I removed the bolt, put there two 2cent coins and a 32mm flat "headset wrench" in between the coins and applied some force to move the wrench a bit inside. Thus I was able to defeat the dreaded curved part but this was still insufficient at the center of the bars. My concern was overstretching the clamp of the stem and damaging it so I just greased the bars and moved the stem to the center of the bars.
There are some minor scratches, no big thing but still, it is not "brand new" anymore.
I wonder whether the bars work better with Nitto stems.
Anyways, these bars are definitely among the top 3 bars you can opt for if you are building a "vintage" bike.
You are reading a single comment by @scorch and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
dragulievic
@scorch
This is a great looking frame and looks to be an awesome build!
Funnily enough, I'm planning to use very same bars for a current project I have, but I have to say they're simply impossible to move in/out of the quill stem. At one point, taking it out the last time, I was even thinking of sawing the fucking stem clamp open, but then I read of the coin trick - still took me about an hour with the coin... Dreadful to think what I will have to go throught to put it back it now...