I am going to put on a 70mm, 0 deg rise stem on my hard tail (down from 100mm 10dg rise). I have 690mm bars with maybe 20mm rise – will I need to take those off and put on a wider set of bars? If so will 710 mm be enough? I ride mostly woody single track in the SE.

Is it also worth going for more rise, or will shortening the stem mean I don’t need so much rise on the wider bars?

I know I can just try it and see, but I have limited time to fettle due to ongoing commitments to ‘the garden’ (Nintendo Wii).

Go wider.

Riding in the SE you say?

You’re gonna need a 50mm stem and a yard stick bar

Mandog, will this make me like Steve Peat then? If not, will want a refund.

I’d try it first and see how you get on. I’ve been riding a 60mm stem with 600 wide bars for a couple of months, it’s horses for courses.

I’m in the shat east too, 65mm stem and 720mm bars. I’m not quite in fashion yet 🙂

Will order stem and see, I suppose it is easy to change just the stem and leave the other bits attached to the bar. Never been in fashion – still ride with a seat pack and a water bottle and quite like to play Bon Jovi loud in the car by myself.

Do some trigonometry if you want to have the same hand to saddle distance while swapping stem length/ bar width 😀

I went from 670mmbars and 100mm stem, to still 670mm bars but 60mm stem. Worked great!

More recently I’ve gone to 711mm bars and 50mm stem but the old pairing is on my wife’s bike, so I needed a second set whatever. 711mm is occasionally annoying in the very tightest places.

By the way, if you find the shorter stem handles better generally but doesn’t climb as well or is as good for covering miles in straight lines, bend your arms and your body will be back to its old position!