Hi, I have just bought a set of salsa Cromotos for my 29er – they look ideal with an AC of just what I was looking for, but I am slightly concerened by the fact they were pre-cut to 190mm steerer (:roll:), and my suspensions they will replace need 200mm.

I can obviously remove 1cm of spacers and I will be good to go, but….

A)- they are replacing a 100 sus fork, and Salsas supposedly 80 corrected so I don’t want a huge change in angles, particularly as my frame is XL
B)- I was already looking to drop my stem size from 90mm to about 60 to aid reach

I see the options as:

1)- Continue with the Salsas, drop some spacers and then get a new stem with more angle and shorter? Any idea of the geometry of stem which will bring me back to the original position of the bars, but also be the equivalent of my going to a 60 stem with the original sus forks?

2)- buy a new set of uncut Salsas? If so, considering the AC is a few CM less than my current suspension forks, would I ADD some additional spacers to bring my bars to approx the same position as before, or leave as-is and just have a more aggressive riding position?

I am tempted by option 2 rather than trying to make the best of the slightly-too-short steerer.

Right now I am mainly using the bike for commuting etc – very little in the way of offroad.

you’re buying a new stem anyway, just get one with a bit of rise in it so the bar’s the same height as it was before? 15 degrees??

yeah, i was intending to at some point (existing is 5 degree and 90mm). would 15 degree but 3cm shorter bring me roughly to the same point as before if 1 cm was lost in spacers? what about 15 degree and the same length?

i saw a graph for these things but was a bit confused 😕

another option would be an extender (BBB BHP-21) which would add an additional 1cm to the stem. only about £10 but a heafty 250g

The A-C is only shorter if you never ran any sag on your suspension forks.You’ll probably find the bars end up feeling in pretty much the same place with the rigids even though they measure ‘lower’.Static vs dynamic bar heights see?

Stem Calc