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KANSAS BOB: THE GREAT STEM HEIGHT MYSTERY IS SOLVED
Kansas Bob
July 31, 2008
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Road Bike Action’s story about stem height, in the May/June 2008 issue, reminded me of a conversation that I had over twenty years ago with Larry Burton, the master bike mechanic at Tailwind Cycling (sadly no longer in business) in Topeka. Mountain Bikes had just come upon the Kansas scene, from their inception in California, and I bought one. Larry noticed that all I wanted to ride was the new mountain bike and my road bike had disappeared into my basement. I wasn’t showing up on club rides anymore because I was always riding by myself. So he asked, “Why aren’t you riding your road bike these days”? My reply was that it was so uncomfortable, my back and neck always hurt like the dickens after a ride and my mountain bike’s position was super comfortable. With this, he requested that I show up the next day at the shop with both bikes in tow. Unusual for me, I did as instructed.
Larry took one look at my road bike’s bar height, measuring the drop at 3.5” to 4” (75-100mm) lower than my seat height, which was the norm in those days. “All right”, he said, “we’re going to set up your road bike to the same dimensions as the mountain bike you’ve fallen in love with”. He settled on a drop of approximately 1 1/4” (30mm) from the seat height down to the top of the bars. He then installed a shorter stem allowing me a more upright position with my hands placed on the top of the road bars. Moving my hands to the outside corners placed me in approximately the same position as my mountain bike bars, while moving forward to the hoods positioned me into a more aggressive angle than my mountain bike provided.
The difference was amazing! I could now ride long distances with every hand position being comfortable. When I rode with my hands on top of the bars, I could look around at the scenery and also stretch my back and neck. The cool thing, that I didn’t expect, was being able to use the drops in the strong Kansas headwinds (which seemed to be coming at me no matter which direction I traveled). With my old setup, using the drops always left me with considerable neck and back pain.
Here’s what Larry did to my bike. First he sorted through all of his mountain stems, knowing that a road stem would never provide the height that he was looking for. He settled on a Cook Brothers quill stem (the A-Head system was many years away during the mid-eighties) with an extreme upright rise angle (probably 35-40 degrees) and a very short reach. He installed this stem at a height just short of the maximum-height line scribed on all quill stems of the day. Then looked through his inventory for a road handlebar that had a 25.4 mm diameter at the center, the same dimension mountain bikes used. Nitto was the bar manufacturer that had the dimensions Larry was looking for. Voila! With that adjustment, I had a road bike that I loved to ride (and, you may have guessed, instantly became the laughing stock of the serious riders that I rode with), enduring many rude comments about my funny bike setup.
Through the years, I’ve modified many road bikes to make them more comfortable, like that mid-eighties Cannondale. Here are several different methods that I’ve employed to raise my bars. The advent of the A-Head system made this much easier. The easiest way is to order an aftermarket fork and not cut it until I was sure that the bars were where I wanted them. This had the advantage of allowing me to use road stems. The caveat is to buy forks with aluminum steerers because the heights that I wanted were beyond the safe limits of carbon steerers. Also, I have always run my stems with the angle up (mountain bike style) rather than at a negative angle so loved by mainstream roadies. Attaching the stem in this fashion gained a portion of the height that I was looking for, through the stem rise rather than extreme steerer tube length. Clamping lower on the steerer tube also results in less stress being placed on the steerer tube, headset, and head tube.
While perusing the parts bins at Bicycle Bobs shop with Kenneth the other day, I found that there are many different ways today to achieve, what was so difficult nearly 25 years ago. There are quill adapters that will allow you folks with 1” threaded steerers to convert to a 1 1/8” stem, gaining height at the same time. In addition, there are height adapters that slide over steerer tubes that were cut too short, allowing additional bar height.
Simply check with a bike shop in your locale to make sure that everything is compatible. With adaptations like this, your best resource for parts and safety information, is your local bike shop. The last thing that you want to do is raise your bars to an unsafe level.
If you’ve read this far, you’ve either gotten your first greetings from AARP, suffered your share of injuries, or like me, are enjoying the fruits of living long enough to look for your social security check each month.
Ride comfortable – raise your bars and leave the extreme drops to the young and flexible.
Happy riding,
Kansas Bob
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