This is like an angled stem that you can experiment with to get your perfect combination of height and reach. A THINstem. This threadless stem provides only about one inch of lift. Primarily, it does something else, allowing your bike to fold flat to fit against walls, so you can store a bike conveniently in a hallway or crowded garage. A THINstem flattens your bike. A riser bar gets you an inch or more of height or reduced reach. Riser bars can add two inches or more to your bar height, or bring your bars more toward your hips for a more upright ride.
Note the compression bolt. A stem extender can raise your bars five or six inches to a completely different type of ride—more upright, and less opportunity for the upper body to help with steep climbs and fast descents. Adding a stem extender is conceptually easy—just extend the steerer tube of the fork higher with this attachment. But in practice, it typically requires swapping out the shifter and brake cables and housing with longer replacements. If you choose this approach, we suggest having a bike shop or a veteran rider do it.
So now you know at least five ways to make your bike fit you better. And these techniques work with any threadless-stem bike. Slamming a long, high-angle stem? Bad idea!!! One question we often get is. We can and do. We install stem extenders too, but it requires additional supplies and shop time. Just as importantly, most of these updates are tweaks that you can easily make at home at any time. To see a stem swap-out in action, just look at this video.
President, Flatbike. For more details on the origin of the threadless stem, see cyclingtips. Great story! I always wondered who invented the threadless stem system.
Not Campagnolo or Shimano, but mountain biker John Rader. I hope he was well — compensated for such a brilliant creation. Good old Yankee ingenuity. I was curious, going from a mm stem with a flat mm bar to the same stem but with a mm bar with 19mm rise…if I was supposed to go with a shorter stem also? How can this affect my steering when trail riding? I see many running shorter stem long bars but dont hear much about long stem long bars. Great question. Well, one thing is certain.
To me, that leaves about 55mm of reach unaccounted for. These are fairly standard for downhill bikes. Your second question is about how longer bars affect trail riding. Same with downhill, when you need fast strength. Riding a technical trail through the woods? Those long bars are more at risk of hitting a tree.
Easy to micro adjust height on the trail 1x6mm Allen key. Not a 4 and 5mm as on most threadless set-ups without affecting headset set-up. Could turn the bars round 90 Deg so the bikes were easier to store without affecting headset set-up. However the pros out-do these! Micro-adjustments on the trail are nice and sand to lose , and the degree handlebar swivel for storage was nice.
For now, both of these functions are accomplished via specialized stems—different ones, unfortunately. We sometimes add these by request to the folding full-size bikes we sell. Adjust on the trail with just a 6mm Allen key. Some of our bikes even include that valuable feature by default. They look hoakey to me. Same for the Zoom adjustable stem… Looked at Surley and other brands of forks with a long, uncut steerer tube, but no love. Finally found the solution.
If you raise it significantly, however, the brake and gear cables may be too short. The cables need to be replaced if the outers are taut, especially if they restrict the steering. The former, called a quill stem, tends to be found on older or cheaper bikes; the latter, called an Ahead stem, is the dominant design on modern bikes.
Quill stems use threaded headsets while Ahead stems use threadless headsets. In a threaded setup, the top part of the headset screws onto threads on the steerer tube, which must be cut precisely to length, and a locknut holds everything in place. The steerer tube does not extend beyond the headset.
The headset is held in compression by the cap on top of the steerer tube the top cap. The spacers on the steerer can sit above or below the stem. If there are spacer washers above the stem, you can fit one, some, or all of them below the stem instead. Undo the top cap with an Allen key and remove it. Partly undo the Allen bolt or bolts at the side of the stem where it clamps the steerer. Slide the spacers and the stem still fastened to the handlebar up and off the steerer, then reassemble with the spacers beneath the stem.
Orient the stem and tighten the side bolt s firmly. Holding the handlebar, lift the front wheel off the ground and turn it side to side. It should turn freely. Now check for play in the headset. I've run some Salsa handlebars for quite a while with 11 degrees of backsweep and liked them a lot, especially for longer rides. Then I got a set of OneUps, which have a pretty normal shape to them, and they are way more comfortable. Funny thing is, the stock bars are almost the exact same shape as the Oneups and I couldn't stand them.
Shape is important but ride compliance is important-er. Hamburgi : 16 seems to be more comfortable on my joints for longer days in the saddle, but also seems a little less precise for high speed descending. Though that's all based on personal perception, not bike fit or any measurable indicators. SQlab 12deg is soo good for my hands. I always felt a pinch in the wrists by my thumbs.
Now that's all gone. I'm thinking that I need a longer stem now though, as the back sweep has pulled my hands rearwards near the steering axis and handling is a bit twitchy. With a normal bar I use a 35mm stem, but with the 12 degree, I've found that a 50mm is needed to put my hands in roughly the same position.
Works great. Makes sense. Narrower handlebars effectively does the same thing as raising the stem height. So does more backsweep. I wonder how much that plays into all the photo's in this story?
Hamburgi : More sweep is more good but only when seated. If you are after a high rise bar Ergotec do a 12 degree back sweep 50mm and 70mm rise bar. I have the 70mm on my HT and 50mm on my FS. I have one in the basement with loads of other boxes an a new frame to start my new build up. How long are your stems to handle the backsweep without going behind the steering axis with you hands?
I did not remember the Paul Aston article I just remembered the article from Richard Cunningham about this topic. What I noticed just now is that I had a wrong reference point in mind. I did the unscientific measurement because no frame at that time with the end of the bar instead of the middle of the grip.
So I ordered an additional 80mm stem because I thought the 50mm stem I had was too short. I guess I will be fine with the 50mm and perhaps can even go shorter. Time will tell I'm still running mine after a year, just feels right. Hamburgi May 29, at I will stay with Perfect for jumps etc. Hell yeah!! Or just 35? Hamburgi : I have one from Newmen. All in Got them on both bikes now. Just wish more companies would do Hamburgi : Chromag.
Excellent article Seb. Thank you for specifically mentioning rider proportion instead of just height. As a short 5'5 rider on long travel bikes with relatively long arms and legs and very short torso, it took me years to figure this out experientially. I have a plus 4 ape index and I always struggled for front end grip. I received a ton of bad advice along the way that only complicated this matter further.
As a shorter rider you tend to be lead into the trap of overly low bar height when in fact your torso to limb length ratio should play an equal role in that decision. Way more front end grip. I used to have to run my fork crazy stiff to maintain any grip at all with the lower bar height. Now I can get some comfort back with the higher bars and allow the wheel to track the ground better with more negative travel. You raise a good point that I didn't mention in the article - if you feel the need to run the fork crazy stiff, it's often a symptom of too low bar height.
Get the bar height right and you can set up the suspension with less compromise. I have been plagued by the too low bar issue on my XL Enduro. I put on a 38mm rise bar the tallest I could find locally and a longer air spring to push the fork travel to mm. The bike came with a cut down steerer tube making height adjustment very limited. The bars are still too low. With my dropper down, my seat is only just below the bars. I measured my head tube and its mm long. My son's 24" wheeled Giant has a head tube of mm.
Makes no sense whatsoever. Pro taper 3" risers here I come Genewich Jun 3, at I'm with you on proportion weirdness, though in a different way. My inseam is from somebody 5'6" and everything else is from someone 5'10", the recent crop of low seat tube, short headtube bikes have been a dream for me. I still end up with my stem all the way down an little saddle to bar drop, but my but to grip distance is finally comfortable.
I remember my very first MTB was a size small because everyone used inseam to do size back then, and I never could get it to fit right in any dimension. I've just learnt this important lesson myself. I built a Transition Sentinel V2 recently, running 15mm of spacer under a Oneup 35mm rise bar and I was having trouble with the front wheel washing out particularly on flat corners and was destroying my confidence with the bike.
Going back to my DH Session 9. So I started doing some research and came to several articles about stack height. I first removed a. I removed the last spacer and it felt like I was too heavy on the front of the bike immediately, I could feel the weight on my wrists so put one spacer back in and it's perfect. I highly recommend all riders experiment with their stack height if they haven't before, you might just unlock the best bike you've ever ridden - it did for me! Stinky-Dee May 30, at I have had the same experience on my motorcycle.
Fast turns, the wind pushes your body back, and the bike starts to understeer drift out with the front wheel. Once I would push my chest down the bike would hook up and tightens the turn. MuddyBrit May 28, at It's so hard to work out what different bars would feel like unless you buy them. MuddyBrit : I think your bar roll preference can tell you a little about your sweep preference. If you like them rolled forward the inverse is true. However, the more rise the bars have the more your roll changes the reach Reach doesn't changed based on bar roll, but it will change if you move the stem up and down.
Effective reach, what Seb is using in his article, would change. Murchman May 28, at As a tall rider 6'2 bars will never be level with my saddle at pedaling height, thank god for droppers. Andrewthemaker May 28, at I'm 6'3" and until recently I felt the same way. But I now have the Whisky Milhouse bar on my Sentinel. I slammed my 5deg stem as low as I could and the position is almost level with my saddle.
It has really helped in the slow tech. Andrewthemaker : Or you can simply use longer stem with original bars, as that is what you have effectively done when slamming the stem and using a big rise bars. Oops, replied to wringwrong thread, sorry, should have been to one below. HCnoodle May 30, at That may be a game changer. WoodenCrow May 30, at HCnoodle : Been wondering who makes a high-rise stem approved for aggressive riding? WoodenCrow : for example bbbcycling.
But taller people generally have longer arms. So, I wonder if the torso angle is similar for most riders. Auto-XFil May 31, at WoodenCrow : Not sure, but there are lots of high-rise bars, which have the same effect and look way cooler, IMO. I've used 60mm rise dirt jump bars to help some lanky people fit bikes with short head tubes and chopped steerers. SnaggleNut Jun 1, at Or get some of those direct mount spacers like minaar uses for a dual crown. I ride them on my DH. Handlebar height in relation with the bottom bracket really should be a geometry metric.
I always calculate the stack height minus the bottom bracket height to know how the bike will feel on the uphills and downhills. Exactly and I believe this is one of, if not the most important measurement for bike fit nirvana!
What they note in this article as spread, once perfected and found for a rider, can be carried over to any bike by angle and distance from the BB. I think stack height is measured from the center of the head tube to the center of the BB If you read the posts above it sounds like they are measuring to the ground.
Santa Cruz and Canyon measure stack height from the center of the axles to the top center of the head tube. YT and Intense measure the stack height from the center of the bottom bracket to the top center of the head tube. BB to HT should be industry standard. Auto-XFil May 30, at Santa Cruz shows from the BB, though, just like everyone else. Auto-XFil : You are right and I am right as well. Some models Nomad, Bronson, Megatower, V10 models, Bullit Santa Cruz shows via their geometry diagrams on their website as the stack height from center of axles not BB to top center of head tube.
Very strange that there is discrepancy in stack height measurements with different models. Not sure if it is a mistake on the geometry diagrams or what. Look at those models geometry diagrams. Auto-XFil : The couple SC models i checked first appeared BB; but a closer look are two parallel lines, one for BB height the other for axle line - there by which B indicates the stack height measurement. Center of BB to top center of head tube seems like it should be the industry standard.
I'm gonna try to ask SC why there is different measurements for different models. Luna67 May 31, at Can you post a link? Luna67 : Just go to each model page and look at the geometry diagram for each model.
Look very closely at the measurement lines. It is better to zoom in. From SC "Thanks for reaching out. There are a couple of ways to measure stack height. The way our engineers do it is from the rear axle height as you said" Going from the axle must give some sort of dynamic reference for how the bike handles.
Certainly less useful for bike fit. Scratching my head. I emailed them as well, but haven't heard back. Also, in normal riding position with the pedals parallel to the ground, your front knee from almost the front edge should be directly over the pedal spindle the middle of the pedal.
This avoids knee pain. Mountain bike- or cruiser-style handlebars allow you to sit upright without hunching over your handlebars like you have to do with old-style speed handlebars. Hunching over is uncomfortable, reduces your visibility, and makes you more likely to fly over your handlebars if you have to stop fast. If your bike has old speed style handlebars, you can get a bike shop to put modern handlebars on it, without having to trade in your whole bike.
Some riders also prefer to install cruiser-style handlebars. Your handlebars should be at least as high as your seat, or even above it, so you can ride upright. Most handlebars can be raised by loosening the screw on the top of the handlebar stem with an Allen wrench a few turns and then tapping it with a hammer to release the mechanism inside.
There are vertical hash marks in a ring around the handlebar stem that indicate the maximum you can safely raise the stem. If you have to raise the handlebars a lot, there may not be enough slack in your brake and shifter cables to raise the stem as much as you want, and you may, therefore, need to install new brake and shifter cables or have a bike shop do it for you.
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