Bike Purchase & Stem Fitting

Reading another thread about Giant Defy sizing, and rightly a lot of the comments are saying try different stems.

However if you go to a bike shop where they 99% of the time charge full RRP, do they then still charge you for the stem too?

To me it would be logical for various stem lengths to be available for customers to try, and then the correct one be fitted to their purchase?

Or am I missing something and this already happens?

We didn’t. We had a cupboard with dozens of stems from 50-160 (really) MM, and changed to fit.

Can of worms. Someone might then suggest that they need to provide a selection of pedals, bars, grips, saddles etc…

I suppose they must fit a stem appropriate to the type of riding the bike is designed for and somewhere in the middle of sizing. Too many variables otherwise. Some shops may well have demo stems to try out different lengths though.

I’ve had LBS offer this on a new (cheap) bike a few years ago, swap stem, saddle, adjust everything, make sure it fits, but it never happened.

Or am I missing something and this already happens?

Go into shop and try the bike, if you want to try a different length stem ask them to change it.

1 If they say ‘no’, walk away.

Second hand stems are very cheap. Lots of people change them and they end up in the classified for around £10-30.

Shops are unlikely to want to stock a range of stems, everyone will have a different taste and desired length.

Slightly annoying when your spending £000’s.

when I got my Defy the shop did a bike fit, however even without that they are happy to let customers try a few different sizes before settling on one. I think as a Giant main dealer they have a box with 90/100/110 mm test road stems for such purposes

That’s surely one of the big benefits of buying from your LBS…

Yeah ours were all bontrager ones provided by Trek so we could do a bike fit when the bike had been bought.

I think it depends on the level of bike we’re talking about. On a £400 bike, there’s not necessarily enough margin involved to swallow the cost of a new stem given that the OEM one which comes off the bike is unlikely to generate any revenue for the shop (they MIGHT use it for a repair job somewhere down the line, but quite likely it’ll end up in a box in the workshop and never get used).

On an £800+ bike, if the customer was paying full RRP, we’d be more than happy to swap out stem, saddle, grips etc (hopefully not all of those on any given bike, but you get what I mean).

As above – I think it’s quite reasonable for customers to expect that on a mid-range or above bike, one of the many advantages of buying in person from an LBS is that they’ll help out with this sort of thing.

Considering most bikes come with an own-brand stem, the bike shop isn’t losing anything by swapping it with another own-brand stem.

The cost price is tiny compared to retail on branded stuff, and they are keeping the one they remove to fit on somebody else’s bike.

Any decent LBS would want to sell you a bike that fits, not a bike. I would expect a free exchange as a matter of course. Giant shops have a full range and it is standard to swap without charge.

My LBS Cheltenham Cycles are always swapping stems for people on all sorts of bikes.

My local giant dealer didn’t want to swap out anything including stem on a defy when I was looking a couple of years ago. Was just a case of you can buy extras at full rrp and keep the old bits.

Ended up with a road bike from my local lbs which was the flagship pinarello concept store… Not a pinarello I might add but they happily swapped the stem out f o c when I went back for a fit tweak 6 months and many miles later, so I suppose horses for courses, they’re all different.

Stem length is only part of the puzzle….what about the saddle/seat post/crank length/bar shape etc.

I think, if you just want a bike then buy one from a bike shop. But I wouldn’t expect parts to be changed for free.

If you want a bike that fits properly; build it yourself.

However, you can’t build a bike that fits properly unless you have some experience of riding bikes that don’t fit properly. Guess it’s a learning curve.

When I bought an Allez the shop swapped the seat post to a longer one and changed the stem for free. They were one of the best bike shops I have been in.

Just to clarify, I was relating to another thread where the OP was potentially between 2 sizes, and it was implied that stem length could make the difference.

To me it would make absolute sense for example a Giant Store stocking Defy’s to be able to offer you a ‘Defy’ that comes with 105 groupset and Giant branded stem.

However you can choose what Crank length ie 172.5 / 175 / 180 and stem length (so long as its the same Giant branded item)

The manufacturer has all these components in their factory in any case.

I’m not looking to purchase at the moment, but I am struggling to think why I should use an LBS and for example pay RRP £1,500 and then be expected to pay another £30-£100 on top to get the bike set up correct for my shape (which is different to personal preference)

On an £800+ bike, if the customer was paying full RRP, we’d be more than happy to swap out stem, saddle, grips etc (hopefully not all of those on any given bike, but you get what I mean).

I assume that is at cost to you as a shop though ie the new stem etc? Surely the manufacturer should supply the option?

I assume that is at cost to you as a shop though ie the new stem etc? Surely the manufacturer should supply the option?

Yeah, no manufacturer that I know of offers that option. The shop would have to bear the cost (which isn’t massive, but it’s not insignificant either which is why I suggested it can only really be expected on mid-range bikes and up). I think the problem is that the manufacturing and assembly is done on another continent, so the company (WhateverBikeCo UK division, or the distributor) which holds the stock of bikes doesn’t necessarily even stock the own-brand parts (which are of course just a generic part with the manufacturers name on anyway). Even if they do, they certainly aren’t willing to crack open boxed bikes and start swapping parts around, believe me.

I do think that it’s entirely reasonable to ask a shop to do this for you. Certainly if you were buying a £1500 bike and not expecting any other discount, we’d be quite happy to swap out stem, seatpost, saddle etc for ones of a similar spec/cost to what’s on the bike. To be honest at that level we’d be happy to swap out cranks too, if you were certain you wanted longer/shorter ones.

It’d be different of course if Cyclescheme/Finance were involved and/or you were also wanting to haggle on the price!

Although it would be great if they did, I’m not sure I agree with your assertion that the manufacturer should deal with this. It’s one of the areas where I see that we as the retailer can add value.

we never charge for swapping stems when we sell road bikes as long as its a ‘like for like’swap out that just requires a stock level adjustment, rather than financial gain/loss.

all our road bike customers get a complimentary bike fit, so we hold a good stock level of stems, bars, saddles, etc. I currently have 40 different Giant stems in the fit room plus Zipp for 1.125 steerer

if a customer wanted a higher spec stem we’d do a deal, by taking their new stem into stock and charging them cost on the higher spec stem

we charge for saddles when doing bike fits, as we tend to use aftermarket saddles if the stock saddle does not fit. for bars of the same brand/quality we’d not charge if swapping out during the bike fit.