Quote Originally Posted by Rebeccah
Alright, well that explains my 25-year-old problem with my bike, then. It's always felt like I was falling over reaching for the handlebars, and I've always been actually *more* comfortable on the drops, which curve back closer to the saddle than the top part of the bars. It's like 3-4" from the tips of my fingers to the center of the top of the handlebars.

Looks like next week I'm shopping for a new stem.
Just don't miss this quote from the article:
"Realize that if you have to buy a really long or really short stem, your frame probably doesn't fit you well."

The author doesn't define what he means by "really long" or "really short", but I'd tend to wager than anything < 7 cm would be considered "really short" (compared to most bikes, which have stems in the 9-11 cm range or so) and > 12 cm is "really long". I know Lisa is happy with her bike with only a 5 cm stem, and that's great, but not everyone would be happy with the handling of their bike with a stem that short, since all bikes handle very differently.

My Terry with a 6.5 cm stem had twitchy front end handling to the point that I really couldn't climb out of the saddle at all. I blamed it on myself, while now I know it was a combination of the short stem, narrow handle bars (38 cm measured outside-to-outside) and small front wheel (24"). I also realize now that I could have probably used a 9 cm stem on that bike as my fingertips actually touched the bar when doing the saddle/elbow test mentioned in the article, and my bars were well behind my front hub on that bike when I was riding.

To explain that, another way to see if your bars are in the right place and stem is the right length is to look down at your front hub while riding on the brake hoods in a comfy position (this works for drop bars only). If the hub is obscured by the top of the bar, that is supposed to be ideal, but if the bars are behind the hub, your stem is on the short side and handling may be sacrificed, as it was with my Terry. If your bars are way in front of the hub, your stem is long and you may need a larger frame size. Similarly, if the bars are behind the hub, your stem is short, but you're in a comfortable position, you might actually be in one size too large a frame. Not that you can't be comfortable on either, but it's not "ideal" per what a professional bike fitter would recommend.

My Bike Friday also has narrow handlebars and a short stem (7 cm) because they didn't make the top tube quite as short as I wanted (I was hoping for a 9-10 cm stem), but the bars perfectly obscure the hub when I ride, and the handling is actually better than my Terry, even with a 20" front wheel! And on my Aegis, which I built up after my Terry, I ended up with a 9 cm stem, obscured hub, and I could climb out of the saddle on the very first ride -- something I'd really struggled with on the Terry!

So that's one more place that handling can be sacrificed with a too-short stem: out of saddle climbing. If you don't ever climb this way, then it's not a big deal, but I wanted to be able to do it.

Just more food for thought. I have had quite a few bikes, many too big for me or just not right for one reason or another, so have become pretty picky about sizing, the more I've learned. Now, all my bikes fit me very well (2 road, 2 mountain).

Emily