Lets say I buy a crossbike frame. If I want to use a flat bar rather than a drop bar, should I change the stem lenght?
And if yes should I go longer or shorter.
Cheers.

maybe.

flat bar will make it quite sit up and beg, like a hybrid, you may want to stretch it out a bit.

you might find the height completely wrong and more difficult to sort.

Cheers tom. I try to look on the cotic website, but no Info.

it’s a balance thing – as your arms widen your centre of gravity moves forward unless you shorten the stem, but a very short stem on a cross bike may the steering feel jittery if the wheelbase is shorter… maybe some google image searches for cross bikes with flat bars??

It’s a reach thing actually.

A drop bar frame will be shorter. 3 centimeters roughly from my experience.

So a flat bar frame with drops needs a shorter stem.

Cheers Al. I have disks for my new project. But I am not sure they’ll fit on a dorp bar, so I was thinking of using a flat one?

Sorry – I realised I answered the opposite question to what you asked.

1. the top tube will be a bit shorter (~3cm) and a longer stem will help though may mess the handlting/front end feel (going shorter’s not so bad)

2. presuming you have mtb disc calipers, these require the longer pull of a v-brake type lever and so won’t work with std drop levers or sti (though you can/could get drop levers that work and calipers that work with normal road levers/sti) but WILL work with std flat bar v-brake levers.

HTH…

basically the cockpit on a flat bar can be longer (measured)

e.g. if you run a 56cm TT and 10cm stem on your roadie then the equivalent flat bar would be more like 57cm TT and a 12cm stem. This will effecively put the bar ends in the same position as where the hoods would be.

Both my roadies are flat bar setups (and one is a disc setup) so I’ve played around with this quite a bit. So if you’re buying a CX bike/frame then the bars you want to run does make a difference. If you want drops then you should buy a shorter TT and if you want flats then buy longer.

Al I am pretty confident I’ll manage to make the disk work. They are very old XC4 caliper (closed system) and therefore I shorten the reach/bite point.

Ah Ok I was on about cable discs.

Tis ok Al, I am looking at using MTB disks and shifters on a 9 speed set up.