New Stem- choices?

flanners1

System wrote:

Flanners1 wrote:

Canny Jock wrote:

Regarding 90mm stems - a lot of decent bikes have them as standard on the smaller sizes (Bianchi Infinito, Cannondale Six). It's also not true to say it will make a bike twitchy, it depends on a lot of factors, only one of which is the stem.

Maybe, but it won't help handling on a roadbike IMO at all, have a look at any pro set-up there aint any running 90mm stems: 130mm seems the average.

That's because most pros ride bikes a size or two smaller than normal. Nothing to do with handling. Advising people on bike sizing and stem length based on what the pros use is going to result in a very uncomfortable ride for 90% of most normal riders.

I used to ride a bike with a 130mm stem and it handled like a shopping trolley. Pros do it because they can gain more benefit from the lighter frame, stiffer front triangle and lower headtube length and therefore more aerodynamic position. Take a look at Hincapies bike here for instance. He's 6ft 3in and riding a frame that IMO is a good 2 sizes too small. He's even gone to the trouble of customising the seatpost just so he can set the saddle far enough back to fit the smaller frame. The long stem is used for a similar purpose, not any benefit in handling.

I agree, however whenever I have ridden a short stem the handling has suffered,

Canny Jock

I agree that a 90mm stem can make some bikes twitchy, but on others its fine - see the Bianchi and Cannondale examples above, I also fitted a 75mm to a Ribble Winter and it was fine (I only did this because it was given to me free and I use it as my commuting bike).

neeb

Canny Jock wrote:

I agree that a 90mm stem can make some bikes twitchy, but on others its fine - see the Bianchi and Cannondale examples above, I also fitted a 75mm to a Ribble Winter and it was fine (I only did this because it was given to me free and I use it as my commuting bike).

Maybe depends on headtube angles & trail. The Infinito has 72 degrees HT on the medium size (71.5 on smaller sizes), so unless the fork has a lot of rake it probably has a fair amount of trail. This could make it less twitchy and offset a smaller stem length.

glasgowbhoy

Thanks for all the responses.

I have given this a bit of thought and decided over the weekend to replace the 90mm stem on my 55cm top tube Defy with the 110mm original stem. I had taken a few spacers off anyway as the bars were far too high. I had been riding the shorter stem and very sit up and beg style since buying the bike as my first road bike and getting used to being more stretched out than a MTB.

After 2 rides, 60 miles and 20miles the set up on the Defy feels absolutely fine which leads me to believe that it will be the angle of the stems that makes more of a difference. On the Kuota the 100mm stem on a 56cm top tube is almost flat with hardly any spacers. It looks far more agressive than the Defy which has a 6 degree angle and rises quite a bit.
Will play around with set ups again but been good to learn its not all about stem height or the stem length.

cheers

vorsprung

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Stems are all the same.
I've never had one that made the difference...

Perhaps you have always been blessed with nice stems

I've had a cheap stem and then switched to an expensive one and the difference was immediately noticeable. The more expensive one was much stiffer in a good way.