PNW Components Coast Stem

The PNW Components Coast Stem is the perfect accompaniment to the super-wide Coast Bar, but it's also a good stem in its own right, with a really nifty adjustable mount and a lifetime warranty.

Stems must be the hardest bike thing to review. Lumps of metal that are easily overengineered to basically never fail, and being inherently light there's little to be gained shaving a few more grams using carbon or other exotic materials. So, aside from not making it look silly, how does a bike brand make its offer attractive to the market?

In the case of Seattle's PNW Components, once the basics were sorted ('Seven-degree rise do? Five lengths, yeah?') the answer was to help clean up your bars.

Space saving

PNW designs stuff to be ridden long and in pretty places, so it's likely you'll be needing lights at some stage, or maybe a camera. Add in a bike computer and maybe a phone (quiet, you purists) already on the bar, and that's a fair jumble of stuff. Yes, you can go for out-front mounts from the likes of Quadlock to put things above/below, but they take up space themselves on the bar, and cost a pretty penny.

Plenty of stem manufacturers and accessory brands do mounts that get held on by the stem's bolts – I have a small box of them, accumulated over the years. None of them look pretty and they all cost money. So to declutter things, PNW has integrated a removable GoPro-style mount into the faceplate of the stem itself. And made it easily adjustable with a 3mm hex.

The result is simple and beautifully executed. A threaded alloy nut sits behind the stem faceplate, with a section of thread protruding slightly. Think of how a two-bolt SPD cleat bolts into a shoe – the threaded nut in your shoe can move back and forth in the same manner.

Adjusting the mount

The mount itself is a strong plastic, with the usual three prongs of the GoPro design. Set into the mount pointing at the stem/nut is a 3mm hex bolt, which you thread partly in, then adjust the angle of the mount up/down to suit. With the faceplate done up to torque you get about 45 degrees of movement up/down; if you loosen the stem bolts slightly you get about 100 degrees – more than enough to get your accessory clearances right – just remember to re-torque them once done. The back of the nut is curved to match the stem, and you have to get the orientation right or it won't move at all.

Once you have the angle right and the mount secure, an included 3mm hex nut/bolt will secure your GoPro-style mount of choice.

This sounds complicated but it's so intuitive there are no instructions needed. And if you don't want it, the mount and nut are easily removed.

As mentioned, PNW recommends pairing the Coast stem with the mega-wide 480 or 520mm Coast bar. Therefore, it offers the Coast stem starting at a very short 60mm option, maxing out at 100mm. The wisdom is for every 20mm you go wider, you need a 10mm-shorter stem to keep upper body geometry tidy. For me, running the Coast 480mm bar, I'm down to an 80mm stem – despite having a 6ft 4in armspan (yes, yes, insert monkey noises here) and a typical 58cm/L-XL frame size.

Value

Value-wise, yes it's £10 more than the Easton EA70 that Matt liked, but it's lighter and has a mount. It's £20-30 more than you could bag any one of a dozen generic stems for, although they are almost certainly going to weigh more, and also won't have mounts – which would also weigh north of 50-60g if you had to add one.

What price you put on the adjustable mount, and on matching any PNW bar, is the question. The Coast stem is also mountain biking rated according to PNW's website, so if you want to use it on a flat-bar bike, go ahead.

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As mentioned in my review of the Coast bar, PNW is, I believe, the first bike component manufacturer to offer a lifetime warranty on its entire range of alloy components, usually reserved for high-end carbon components. As with the bar, the T&Cs exclude normal wear and tear as well as impact damage, as you'd expect, and again – how exactly you calculate 'normal wear and tear' on an alloy stem I'm not sure, so you should be good forever basically.

I believe every cyclist will at some stage find a use for the mount, and therefore combining the cost, the functionality and the warranty, along with the looks, the Coast stem represents pretty darn good value. If you really needed a mount but couldn't physically fit one, maybe on a maxed-out accessory setup with a narrow bar, it could be the answer to your Fettling prayers.

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It's a brave new world this allroad-gravel gig, and brands like PNW are delivering the well-priced goods needed to make it fun and functional. In the Coast Stem it has an affordable, attractive, functional component that will look good on pretty much any bike, to get your stuff off the bar.

Verdict

Very tidy and cost-effective way to get more handlebar mount space on your bike – plus it's a stem