What would I notice going from 70mm to 50mm? Sharper handling, easier to pop a manual etc or too twitchy to climb effective with the weight distribution change?

If it makes a difference the bike is a 2011 Lapierre Spicy which at the moment feels quite ‘long’ even though its a medium and I’m 6 foot…

Should be fine, i have a 45mm stem on my bike, no problem on hills i used to get up on a hardtail with a 90mm stem.

Handling is more direct, takes all of one decent length ride to get used to it….didnt make it twitchy at all really….much more twitchy is my road bike with its really long stem but ridiculously steep (for me) fork angle.

You will notice, otherwise it’d be pointless…

Depends what you’re trying to achieve…i couldnt have cared less whether the handling became sharper or any of the other reasons people give for fitting shorter stems, i simply wasnt comfortable feeling spread out like Superman over the front wheel on downhill sections….i wanted a shorter stem that would bring me further back on the bike.

2012 zesty here, changed from the standard bar stem to a renthal stem 50mm with 10 deg rise and renthal bar trimmed to 750mm, feels so much better now

same as Jimmy but dropped to Haven 55mm and 710mm bars on zesty. Great improvement in technical stuff. Going up hills is just a tad more difficult but the ability to get around switchbacks is greatly improved as is technical descents. Worked great on maxi avalanche course

Thanks for the responses guys. Pretty much confirms what I thought.

I’m going to give it a go with a Renthal setup.