Sadly the last decade of fashionably-short-stems-for-all has moved most away from what is good for the individual to what looks good leaning against the signpost. Since most of us that are in good health are highly adaptable, our bodies will quickly conform to the bike, so don't spend a lot of time on each configuration, just swap some parts and do a quick loop. repeat. Preferably doing a couple on the same day. Use a sharpie to put a hash mark on the handlebar at the stem/cap gap so you can keep an eye on clocking the bar sweep. The initial impression should not be discounted. Have fun
DT
Agree with this.
I think stem length and height is like many other aspects of bike design… Any change will have its pros and cons. It’s very dependent on how you like your bike to handle and the type of trails and riding you like to do.
At risk of getting long winded here… bikes in general have become very dh focused. This is sort of silly when you think about it. The dh time on any ride is only a small fraction of your time on the bike. And descending most trails on any rig (within reason) is lots of fun. But climbing and traversing on any bike may not be fun. Go too dh oriented on your bike and the 85% of your ride time spent traversing and climbing will not be fun. Now this is coming from someone who still rides lift assist on his dc dh bike but also totally digs old school xc climbing tech and 4 hour pedally suffer-fests.
The majority of riders I see are now on dh focused rigs that have them spend lots of time pedaling to the top of a trail on a dirt road then a relatively short time bombing back down as quickly as possible. Then having no desire to slog back up the dirt road to do it again. An hour after they’ve started they are finished. The “epic ride” is dying. Few people want to pedal a 34# dh focused rig around for four or five hours.
I feel like there is a dwindling minority of riders who still makes the most of techie climbs, tight flatter twistie, rolling terrain on natural featured trails.
Dh is great but bike setup too focused on this is missing out. Gotta have both the ying and the yang. Gotta have the rain to get the rainbow. Gotta truly suffer the climb to enjoy the view.
I think I’m spun up as I just finished watching Pinkbike‘s trail bike review. They did a good job and it was real fun to watch, but I don’t think those bikes are trail bikes. Way too dh focused and not that fun to climb on. While they did talk about climbing, like most videos, the vast majority of the footage showed riders going dh. That just ain’t reality. Dh is only a tiny part of a real trail ride on a real trail bike.
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