Right now we have a bike in the shop getting component assembly work done,
and the customer brought in a Ritchey C260 stem that's been custom painted,
with matching paint on the front fork as well.


When you run your finger over this paint job, you can tell
there isn't even a slight step between the color transitions—
it's smooth enough to call it flawless.
Really meticulous work.

About the Ritchey C260 stem:
the model name comes from the fact that
the handlebar clamp section on the stem
wraps around 260° of the circumference.

With a round handlebar, you can slip it through
from the handlebar end to install it,
but with handlebars that have angular bracket mounting sections,
that method sometimes won't work.

Alternatively, if the rise section is a flattened shape
that isn't long front-to-back,
you can thread it through from the back of the rise section
and slide it sideways to install it.
When the handlebar is an aftermarket part not made by Ritchey,
installation isn't guaranteed,
and there are plenty of cases where people have managed
to install it like solving a puzzle ring, barely making it fit.
For some reason, in my experience,
I've far more often fitted aftermarket bars to C260 stems.

Separate from the C260,
there's also a C220 model that has
less wrap-around on the stem side
to fit most handlebars.


With this C260 stem,
the customer had lost the front cap,
so they bought just that part separately later,
and since it's a C260 front cap for the C260 stem,
as you can see in the image above, the fit of the arc section
against the handlebar is no problem.













The widths are completely different though
あばｂっばｂっばっばばばｂっばばっばばっばばばああ

Edit: It seems the width differs between carbon stems and aluminum stems.