how short a stem is too short?

[HillSlugger]

So what's the truth? That's what I want to know . It seems like we get a mixed message from the "conventional wisdom"...

Like I said, conventional wisdom is not always true or accurate.

[Ana]

--When I had my fitting on my new bike the fitter said he didn't love to put people with smaller frames at the larger end of the 80-120mm range, nor people with larger frames at the shorter end (I'm kinda heading towards one extreme, at least by this definition, on a bike with a 51.5cm tt and a 110 stem). I suppose this is partly just because it means you're at the edge of your range of adjustability, which isn't really an issue for pros, but it still seems like there's a sacrosanct rule that bike fitters don't want to put you on stems outside of "the range" -- but if the handling consequences were so awful, why would you see it so often in pro riders? (I should add, after perusing lots of Cycling News features, I haven't seen any stems on male pro bikes shorter than 90mm -- but lots over 120).

Maybe it's one of those weird penis related things... (i.e. part of those male things that I can't understand...). You know, the "mine is bigger than yours" thing....obviously I have no idea about the long stem thing but I just thought I'd throw that out there