Will I regret starting a thread on STW with the word darkside in the title?

Also, would I regret swapping my roughly -5 degree 90mm stem for a 5 degree 120mm stem on my road bike? I’ve got one 10mm spacer in underneath the stem at the moment, so I could take that out. I want it to be longer, but not much lower.

Will not be able to run it upside down either.

Impossible to say. Try it and stop worrying 🙂

I have to ask how you can be okay riding a 90mm stem when you could be using a 120mm?

This site is great for seeing the effects of changing stem length, angles and numbers of spacers on height and reach:

http://alex.phred.org/stemchart/Default.aspx

My bike came with 90mm, it now has 120mm.

Only issue I’ve noticed is that when you lean into a corner it tends to want to oversteer wildy, which you have to correct. It is possible to turn in smoothly but you have to be ready for it. Not really dangerous though, not severe enough for that, but you have to think about it if you want a smooth line.

My bike came with 90mm, it now has 120mm

I’m really quite surprised by that, it just seems so short for any road bike.
I’m very tempted to push to a 130mm, currently running 110mm and sometimes it feels too short. Sadly too expensive to just ditch.

mine came with 120 and now has a 90 mm then again my knuckles are nowhere near the floor when I stand up 😉
Try it and see I believe fitment to be a personal issue as long as your saddle height is 105-7% obviously.

My bike is 53cm compact, and I’m 5’11 (with perfectly average length arms 🙂 ) I do find it slightly short on the drops although comfy – I can ride for a while on the drops without aches – but it’s spot on on the hoods.