Cinelli quill stems are part of cycling history. There are thousands upon thousands of them in circulation on vintage bikes of all types with threaded fork steerers. They're a great part, save for one weird little bit -- the stock Cinelli quill stem bolts use a 7mm hex key and have a 7mm x 1mm thread draw bolt with a tapered nut.
This 7mm business is problematic for a couple of reasons. Virtually no multi tool or standard hex tool set includes a 7mm wrench. There are no draw bolts with 6mm hex fittings and 7x1 thread. Standard 8mm draw bolts have both a different thread size and a head diameter that is too large for the 12mm pocket in most vintage stem bodies.
We of course partially solved this issue with our M8 stainless steel and M8 titanium draw bolts, which have an optional aluminum wedge we machine in house as an upgrade to the clunky cast steel wedges found in many traditional quills. Those bolts both have a 12mm OD head that will fit in the Cinelli stem body, but the M8 threading is incompatible with the Cinelli cone nut and our wedges will not work with the tapered nut system.
To cut through all of these contradictions at once and do the world a favor by slowly removing the oddball 7mm bolts and cones from circulation we are now offering a fantastic update service to make this style of Cinelli quill stem compatible with standard 8mm draw bolts.
You send in your stem, we change the thread size on both the cone anchoring the quill draw bolt and the single pinch bolt handlebar clamp to 8mm and provide 8mm titanium bolts with normal 6mm hex fittings for both locations.
Yep, you can have a Cinelli quill stem that is both lighter and more convenient!
We are here to help.