cubed

How about a new pic? That one is 2 years old. It's Heikki Hall and the photo was in Decline.

Sounds like those 15 hour days paid off. Tyler is one of the hardest working dudes in the industry. The I-Beam has come a long way!

Also, while riding a split stem like this one you are relying on 4 small bolts to hold it to your top crown. When you are cornering or bobbling through a rock garden you aren't stressing your stem up and down evenly so you are relying on 2 bolts at some points. This stem lacks surface area in the handlebar clamp - This will lead to added stress on the handlebars and may cause failure at the bar if not at your top crown. Also, the tolerances on the split stems are never perfect causing your bars to rarely be straight.

I like the bike. It's nice to see a large company like Cannondale doing things differently. The neutrals are available @ sicusa.com.

I think the stem is strong if you stressing it straight up and down but I think it really lacks latitudinal strength. I run a Sic stem on my boxxer and I think its worth the extra grams for the piece of mind.