Darimo Carbon continues to lay up ever-lighter components by hand in their València, Spain workshop to satisfy even the most demanding weight weenies. Their latest project is a handmade road stem with real weights of around 80g or less, and plenty of options on the way for sizes and angles. And to show off the new stem, Darimo had a customer’s bike on hand to show just how low they can go…
Darimo Stem, ultralight handmade carbon road bike stem
The Darimo stem is actually so new that it doesn’t even have a name yet. Darimo owner Damià Rizo had teased us that a stem was in the works when he released the lightweight road bar & then the monstrously wide gravel bar earlier this year. But now it is real, and he has finalized the molds for the first two stem offerings.
The design uses a removable carbon faceplate, with four titanium bolts clamping the handlebar in place via alloy barrel nuts. The steerer tube is clamped in a similar manner with two bolts & barrel nuts.
These first production stems are available now in +/-6° rise, in 100mm & 130mm lengths, and are selling for 350€. Actual weights for these two sizes were 73.6g for the 100mm & 81.9g for the 130mm stems when we set them on Darimo’s calibrated scale.
While those sizes may seem arbitrary, they were just the first sizes that Darimo needed, and set out to have tested.
The Darimo Stem will be made available in 6°, 12° & 17° versions, each available in 10mm length increments from 60-130mm – all ready within approximately one month. If you have a set size you need, reach out and they should be able to give you a more concrete estimate.
And an even lighter mountain bike version in the works?
Darimo says they plan to produce a version of the stem with a non-removable, two-bolt faceplate. It should save roughly another 8g by losing the top two faceplate mounting bolts. But it will only work with a flat bar since the curved bend of a modern compact road bar won’t fit through the tight clamp. No images yet of that one, or really when it will come, so use your imagination for now…
DeiviX’s 4.91kg complete carbon AX Lightness road bike
Back to the road stem…. Who actually needs a 74g carbon stem? Well, realistically no one. But that’s no reason not to build it…
Anyway, who’s going to stop a bunch of weight weenies from trying to build their next bike, even lighter than the last?
At Sea Otter Girona, Darimo borrowed a customer’s bike to show how low they can go – featuring the new stem, together with Darimo’s new carbon compact road handlebar and their Dyneema rope carbon T1 Loop seatpost (topped by a Berk saddle.)
This superlight complete bike belongs to David Pla, aka. DeiviX, a bike mechanic and strong proponent of the ‘lighter is better‘ mantra. DeiviX built up this 4.91kg (10.82lb) complete, rideable road bike on an AX Lightness Vial Evo frameset and Lightweight Meilenstein Obermayer tubular wheels.
This is a real bike being ridden in Valencia with a full 2×11-speed SRAM Red eTap drivetrain, complete with Speedplay pedals, a ‘conventional’ bottle cage, and a second set of studs for a cageless Fabric bottle.
