Another day, another part

One of my goals in building the bike was to maintain a relatively traditional appearance and a big part of that is using silver parts. As you may have noticed, these days it's getting really hard to find silver seatposts, stems and cranksets. While carbon fiber parts are naturally black aluminum parts are not. Companies paint aluminum parts black for one very simple reason: it's cheap! Polishing a crank arm, stem or post is time consuming and time is money. I was able to narrow down my stem choices to a few options:
1) Interloc. Interloc offers two silver stems. Both are reasonably priced and well made. The Prestige model is the more expensive ($80) but also the lightest at 120 grams. Normally I'd be leery of something that light but it's made by Tange and I trust them.
2) Oval Concepts. Biggest selling point on these stems is the reverse threading on the stem cap. The removable cap is threaded and the bolts go in backwards. Overtighten and strip some threads and all you have to do is replace a cheap cap instead of the whole stem. A very clever design and one of those "why didn't I think of that" things.
3) Rivendell lugged threadless. Heavy, wildly expensive ($80), and a single bolt clamp which makes it extremely difficult to change stems or bars. Also by far and away the best looking.
4) Nitto UI-5GX. Very rare but reasonably priced ($55). Weight is claimed at 170 grams which is in the light-but-sane category.

After much pondering I finally decided on the Rivendell. I can't believe I'm paying $80 for a stem! I work in the industry and can order direct from a number of vendors. People think this is a great perk but that's because they don't know how little the bike business pays! If it wasn't for pro-deals most industry folk could never afford bike parts. Also helps that Grant is one of the nicest people in the bike biz so I'm always happy to send my hard earned dollars his way.