Ritchey is making some running changes to graphics. In the selection menu sale pricing is listed on discontinued colors/graphics. Save big on Ritchey's standout WCS C260 stem.

Leave it to Tom Ritchey to take the WCS stem which many thought was at the pinnacle of its design path and improve on it. A radical change in the thought process of how a stem holds the handlebar produced the C260. It is lighter (hard to believe, but true) and stronger, the two major hallmarks in which we measure a bicycle component.

In the past few seasons, one didn't need to ruminate about stem choice, just slap a on a WCS 4-Axis and off you went. The C260 now gives you another viable choice for a high-end Ritchey stem solution. The most noteworthy feature of the stem is the clamp and faceplate design. This is where the stem's namesake is derived. The C260 nomenclature effectively means Circumference 260 degrees. If you take a peek at the sideways profile of the stem, you can see the clamping area that is on the stem wraps around the bar 260°, while the faceplate is a mere 100° to complete the 360° wrap of the handlebar. In effect, the stem clamp holds around 2/3 of the bar in an over-center design and the faceplate holds only about 1/3 of the bar. A stark difference from the 50/50 support of the standard faceplate design. This design produces a more balanced and circumferential clamping force on the bar instead of the more two-dimensional vise-like force of a standard faceplate design. The faceplate fixing bolts now clamp from the back and create a smooth svelte look.

At the rear of the stem, the clamping mechanism to the fork has been altered from previous designs as well. The slanted slot is replaced with an arcing radius and 3 bolts with the middle bolt having an opposed direction from the top and bottom bolts. This helps further reduce the amount of stress on the steerer tube of today's super lightweight carbon forks.... Read More