What a difference a stem makes …

I went for a bit of a mixed road/gravel bimble yesterday on this trusty (fixed) steed.

Before heading out I swapped out the lockdown purchased Deda stem for a Chiggle bargain Zipp SL stem that I bought a couple of to get the position on my road bike sorted*.

Wow. I am beaten up today. There is no give/flex in the Zipp stem (what I wanted for the road bike) and that was missed on anything other than the road sections.

By comparison the Deda stem is like a flex stem.

In years (and years) of cycling I don’t recall such a big difference coming from such a minor change.

Thats all!

*match the other Zipp bits 😊

Slightly different, but I added a fleabay stem extender on my Genesis which eliminated the back ache I was getting after 20-30miles of pootling.

A few rides later I added a 3D printed saddle (found it on a STW forum) made a big difference as well.

True story. My mate had a roady that was too small, i dug out an old trials stem to extend the reach and give him more rise to emulate the larger cockpit he needed. It suffered a touch cornering but his overall speed and comfort was significantly improved.

Said the plant as it branched out.

What a difference a stem makes …

you’ll be blown away by suspension forks !  :?

@klunk :-)

This was like going from a plush Pike to a Quadra 10 ;-)

I’m still unsure what the difference is with the stems…difference in length? difference in rise? It sounds like whatever the change was it has been beneficial, but I’m needing to know what has changed!

The stem extender raised the bars by, say, 1.5″ and the reach was reduced by a few mm. The aim was to reduce pressure on my lower back on a repurposed cyclocross bike used for longer road/gravel rides when most of my riding is on an Orange Stage Evo.

The change was very successful.

Whether it is optimum, I couldn’t say, but I’m happy with the result 🙂

Ah excellent, I was hoping for that kind of thing, thanks. Asking as I’ve done a similar exercise…except I’ve bought a whole new bike!

😀

I was/am thinking similar but wanted to be sure I’ve solved the problem.