[daugela]

I posted this in the beginner's corner because it's kind of a beginner quesiton.

I have a 2008 Reign 0. Love it. When I purchased it, there were 3 spacers under the stem - about 1 inch. At the time, it looked normal and felt normal since I was new to mountain biking.

Now after a year, I noticed that not many, if not any have as many spacers under the stem as I do.

It rides fine and I'm used to it, but I'm thinking about lowering it and seeing how it feels.

Are there any advantages to lowering the stem as opposed to leaving it where it is?

Also, the Reign has a large headset to begin with.

 

[mace1978]

It's mostly about riding comfort. I think any change to the ride quality of your bike would be negligible. The best thing to do is pull out your hex drives and go at it! Have some fun and learn what it does to your riding position! Worst case is that you end up spending 10 minutes returning it to the way it was.

 

[antonio]

It will *slightly* shift your weight forward and *slightly* lengthen your cockpit. This should help with climbing (shifting your weight forward), but detract a bit when descending and popping up the front wheel. You might not notice a diffeence, but if you do it will be a small one.

I say try it, pop the biggest spacer over the stem and give it a ride or two to see if you prefer it. Won't hurt, and it might end up being your preferred set up.

Ant

 

[antonio]

Lowering the stem might also alter your steering a bit, and help carve turns by making it easier to weight the front wheel.

Ant

 

[vansevo]

Hi

It's a very similar set-up to my Trance X, with the spacers and the conical spacer. on my trance X I have taken off the headset spacers and removed the conical spacer on top of the head set (reveals a nice cane creek integral headset) - the stem now sits on top of the headset. The affect of this is to lower the bars considerably, which for me gives a much better riding position - before I felt like i was steering a ship as the bars were simply too high! this is a general 'criticism' of the trance X in most bike reviews. as the other posts say try it - as long as you don't shorten the steerer tube on the fork (which I have done), you can return it to stock.

 

[daugela]

Hi

It's a very similar set-up to my Trance X, with the spacers and the conical spacer. on my trance X I have taken off the headset spacers and removed the conical spacer on top of the head set (reveals a nice cane creek integral headset) - the stem now sits on top of the headset. The affect of this is to lower the bars considerably, which for me gives a much better riding position - before I felt like i was steering a ship as the bars were simply too high! this is a general 'criticism' of the trance X in most bike reviews. as the other posts say try it - as long as you don't shorten the steerer tube on the fork (which I have done), you can return it to stock.

Interesting......Didn't know that Cane Creek was under it. I like the feeling the way it is now. I ride mainly rocky technical stuff in AZ. I think it helps on the descents. I took out one spacer from below and will ride it a couple weeks before I take an more out.

Wonder why Giant has that conical spacer on it?

 

[ducktape]

You do know that whatever spacers you take out from below you will have to put on top? Just checking, it's a basic thing but not everyone knows.
Once you have found the new position that suits you can then cut the steerer and get rid of the extra spacers all together.

I think you'll notice that most people have at least a couple of spacers, just in case they decide to upgrade their fork and sell the old one, as nobody will buy a fork that has a steer tube too short for their bike. And there is also the consideration that some stems are longer at the neck than others - for example syncros measures 50mm, when I replaced my olds stem with it I had to remove one of the spacers and leave it off.