Sorry to hear this. I was amazed at the difference between the steer tube length between my old kaput Hillside/Cove Stiffee and my new Zaskar 18". My solution so far has been to buy a passel of spacers to raise the bars to a reasonable level. It looks stupid, but rides ok and might be passable because I'm just building it up as a work bike. If I was building it retro it would really strain my old back. It may have provided really agressive race geometry BITD, but it certainly doesn't fit with my current condition and level of flexibility.