Deciding on length to cut steerer

dan1502

I'm at the stage of my bike build where I'm about to cut the steerer. I've been advised that it's worth keeping the steerer at 200mm or more in case I want to sell them on in future. 200mm would leave me with about 30mm of spacers, which I would have thought would give me plenty of flexibility for adjustment. The trouble is the wheels are still at the builders as they've offered to fit the tubeless tyres for me and I didn't have the tyres until very recently (the bike shop's quite far away).

So, should I just get on with it and cut them at 200mm or should I allow say another 5 mm just in case or should I wait until I have the wheels and try sitting on the frame with wheels and bars attached. I'd rather get on with it but don't want to make a costly mistake.

ricardo_smooth

Don't cut them full stop. Just put spacers on top to take up the extra room.

dan1502

Yes but then I'd end up with about 95mm of spacers!!

BG2000

I doubt you've got enough spacers to fill up the gap of an uncut steerer tube (sorry, just seen your post confirming this...). I'm guessing you've got enough to fill up 30mm.

How would you determine the ideal steering tube length anyway ?

Have you got a measurement for handlebar height that you're sticking with, hence the fact you need to wait for your wheels to return ?

Or are you going by 'feel' ?

If you can't ride the bike until the wheels are back, what's the rush to cut the steerer down ?

dan1502

My ideal plan is to build the bike up without fitting the wheels then go to the shop (which I won't be able to do until Saturday morning) fit the wheels (and cassette and brake discs) and also probably get them just to check what I've done is ok, leaving me with Saturday afternoon for adjustments and a complete bike in time to ride it on Sunday.

If I wait for the wheels I might not have the bike ready for Sunday. I do have about 60mm of spacers so could just use the lot for now and cut them down further once I've ridden the bike and checked everything but was thinking that with the bike being designed to have a short headtube it would be a bit daft to go silly on the spacers.

dan1502

With regards determining the right steerer length, on my current bike I've stuck with the same profile of bars and experimented with different rise stems and putting spacers above or below the steerer to different degrees until if felt right. This leads me to think I should be fine so long as I leave enough leeway to play with but I guess my question is more around what the sensible maximum is. As an idea, on my current bike I've only changed things around within a less than 10mm range but I guess that will be geometry dependent and the TALAS forks I have will possibly add another consideration into the mix.

BG2000

If you cut it down temporarily, leaving 60mm to experiment with, that's plenty.

Just follow the rule, mark twice, cut once etc...

When I cut mine, I only left about 30mm extra to try out different stem positions.

And in the end, I decided against using any spacers and cut it down to 42mm above the headset (equal to Thomson stack height). I don't care about selling the forks - and hope I won't ever need to. I just don't like spacers, and can achieve perfect bar height without them. That's just my opinion though, and as you say, it depends on bike setup. My Cove has a slightly longer than average headtube and 150mm forks, a 10° rise stem and 1 inch rise bars, so I really don't need anything else to raise the bars higher.

I'm sure, as you originally said, that 30mm is enough to play around with. I wouldn't leave the steerer longer just because you might sell the forks. Or do you already foresee future spending spree

dan1502

I actually think around 30mm will be plenty to play with but will probably just use the max for now as if I will be cutting them down at some point it makes no odds.

I too would prefer few or no spacers. At 30 mm or there abouts I could fit one of those conical ones which look much better with an inset headset.

I don't envisage selling the forks and this has been the mother of all spending sprees for me so it has to stop here. They're 2011 Talas Kashima 29er forks so pretty much as good as it gets for 29ers at present. That said, for the sake of a few spacers it would be worth it just in case and I think 200mm would just about be the max steerer length to look ok plus stem angles and bar rises can be increased like you say.

Thanks for the help, I kind of had an idea anyway but just want to be sure as there's no going back.

.blitz

BG2000 wrote:

I don't care about selling the forks - and hope I won't ever need to.

^^ this

Personally I don't see the sense in buying decent forks and then riding round like a dork with big stack of spacers 'just in case'.

A few cm is enough to experiment with, there's plenty of choice in terms of stems and bars.

dan1502

I agree but think as I am probably going to cut them further at some point anyway I might as well use all 60mm of spacers, try it on a ride or two then cut again.

Thanks once again.

beelzebomb

Make sure if you cut, that there's enough steerer for the stem to bolt to, that's all I'll add!