I prefer my handle bars at much the same height as the saddle so usually have a few headset spacers in there. Recently I’ve been looking at used forks and many have very short steerer tubes some as short as 160mm.
I leave my steerers with at least 200mm and run a spacer on top if necessary so I can fit it onto another bike in future or sell on more easily.
Do most people just slam the stem onto the headset and chop the steerer to suit?

I have 20mm under and 10mm above on both my bikes

I suppose if you have the frame designed correctly for you and the stem/bar combo is just right then you shouldn’t need any spacers – it probably does look the best this way – but some stem/headset manufacturers say you have to use one spacer at least.

I’m with you though, always leave the forks around 200mm to leave my options open in the future, but I do like my bars quite high anyway so it’s not a problem.

I always fit around 15 – 20mm of spacers so I can fettle the bar height on a new build.
My intention is often to trim the steerer once I have the bar height set, but never do. Like you, I will rather leave a 5mm or 10mm on top.
This also gives a more guaranteed secure clamping area for the stem.

Yes. I like a spacer under the top cap because that allows me to get a fully clamped steerer and still tension the bearings properly.

Also useful when i did a solo last year, to be able to raise the stem and give me a slightly more upright position – saved the back of my neck from aching quite so much. Not aero, and made the front a bit wandery on steep climbs but as there weren’t any really steep climbs on the course, and if there were i’d pretty soon have been walking up them anyway, that wasn’t actually an issue.

There’s something aesthetically offensive about a 20mm stack of headset spacers sticking out above a stem, they also look perfect for caving in your sternum in a crash.

That said I also sympathies with not cutting the steerer in case you need to sell them on.

Fortunately being a big lump my frames tend to have reasonably long headtubes so I can run my stem in the right place without a load of spacers on top and don’t have to cut it down that much.

Depends on the geo of the bike for me. My full sus just has a little slim spacer between stem and top cap but otherwise the stem is flush with the frame and bars about the right height for me. My hard tail is lower at the front because I ended up with a small frame (c456) to get an acceptable length for me (it’s still longer than my medium frame Nomad), so it has a few spacers below the stem and a small one just above. As said, for resale or reuse I didn’t want to cut the steerer down too far, but didn’t want the bars right at the top with a huge stack so it’s just sat slightly below the top. It looks okay to me and doesn’t stick out more than maybe 10mm.

MTB has a 10mm one above the stem, I would cut it, but it’s a short head tube and I want to retain resale value.

One road bike has none – it’s old enough that I don’t think it’ll impact the resale at all! The other road bike has none below, and 20mm above, again, for resale value. It did have 50mm above, which looked utterly ridiculous. Damn Spesh and their stupid long head tubes.

Nothing on current bike but it came like that and was fine so when I changed fork I cut it the same.

New bike will have 10-15mm of spacers until I’m happy then I’ll likely trim more than likely.

My Langster came with a crap load, haven’t changed anything on that tbh and would probably have to start messing with bar drop etc if I did as I would be too bent over for my liking, at least currently anyway.

I couldn’t ride bikes without them. Even the biggest frame sizes have seen reducing steerer tubes in the frame to cope with longer forks. It doesn’t really help at the taller end of things, so I need spacers.

Small 5mm spacer under the stem to allow tensioning down onto the headset bearings properly and then usually one 10mm spacer above the stem as i dont like the idea of the top bolts of the stem clamping down onto effectively nothing if the steerer is cut so short that spacers above the stem are not required…if that makes sense!

…and also if you cut the steerer too short it makes selling them a bugger.

Tend to swap forks around so the bike with the longest head tube is the deciding factor. The worst combo has 20 mm spacers above the stem and 10 mm below.

Dual crown forks on the big bike have been precision cut one 2.5 mm spacer underneath the top cap

I always leave a few on- gives me room to change frames or bars, or just preference. And better for resale but that’s not a big consideration. I’m glad I do though as my Revs are now in their 5th or 6th bike and are just barely long enough for the Ragley.

i leave about 30mm of steerer after the stem is on. that way i can adjust the height of the stem to where i want and then still have enough space to move it up or down if needed
at the moment ive got a 10mm under the stem and 20mm above it. plus i have a tendency to changing frames every now and then so the extra steerer should hopefully mean that its long enough to fit another frame should the headtube be longer than my current one

I usually run 30 under and 10 over so I can adjust to how I want it easily

Yes.

It’s much easier to use spacers than spend 30mins in the garage looking for the saw, then 20 in the garden looking for it, then finding it in a ‘den’, then going to town for a new blade that’s not rusty or damaged, then cutting stuff.