Stem

Quirrel

My current stem is +10 110mm ITM carbon something or other - feels like carbon wrap around alloy to me and not 100% carbonfiber

It looks nice, but I'm worried it's making my reach too far.

Any advice on what sort of stem I should be looking at and what angle?

supersonic

6 to 10 degrees is the average angle, but the height of your bars depends on other factors too ie bar ride, headset spacers etc.

I'd drop to 80mm and see how it feels. Exotic do some great stems.

Quirrel

Thanks.

I went out yesterday, and felt that when I was climbing I wasn't getting enough traction to the back and spinning out.

I guess it's hard to get the stem and bars right without buying lots of them to test out. The bike itself is fairly large so I'm already stretched out. Having previously herniated by discs a couple of times, I'm quite aware of what my back is telling me, and yesterday it was saying " something is not quite right here"

supersonic

It can be a bit of trial and error - but always use the adjustments you have ie headset spacer swappin if you have any, saddle sliding on the rails and so on.

The stem is quite long though. You don't want to go down too much, so 80 or 90 sounds a good compromise.

http://www.carboncycles.cc/?s=0&t=0&c=48&p=608&

Cheap, light and good. Good enough for my Zaskar.