Long stems???

[DocBraunson]

Excuse the Newbie question here but...

Why are a lot of Retro mtbs fitted with super long stems? 120mm 130-150mm??? these last couple years when i started building bikes i would buy shorter stems (90mm) because the long ones looked wanky. But i just put a retro Control tech stem that is 120mm on my Raleigh tomac and i loved how it rode.

can someone explain to me why stems used to be so long, why they seem to be shorter now, and how it will affect my riding going from short to long stems!

Any info would be sweet!

 

[DoctorRad]

Good starting point:

http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/article/m ... tems-2492/

 

[24pouces]

Old bikes didn't have suspension fork, and the long stem (as sais in Article) stabilize the riding of the bike. But when suspension forks appears, the direction became heavier, hand the bike, more stable, so, the stem become shorter. When you see long travel DH, you understand why they need short stem : it would be like riding a truck !

I remmber around 94-95. On his bike, Gary Fisher gives longer horizontal tube and a shorter stem (it was the "genesis geometry"…)

 

[DoctorRad]

Old bikes didn't have suspension fork, and the long stem (as sais in Article) stabilize the riding of the bike.

...though of course the bikes could have been designed to handle more stably with a shorter stem by default. I think another reason for longer stems was the more stretched out position which racers wanted. Bloody racers...

But when suspension forks appears, the direction became heavier, hand the bike, more stable, so, the stem become shorter.

So did the trend to shorter stems start as a result of people wanting to quicken up the handling of their non-suspension-corrected bikes when they put suspension forks on them?

 

[RockiMtn]

my more modern FS rocky still feels right to me with a 130mm stem! :shock:

had a slightly shorter 120mm for a while but still wasn't quite right.

 

[FairfaxPat]

Another thing to consider is that some top tubes got longer. My older large frame bikes had mostly 221/2" to 23" top tubes, while my 5 inch travel extra large Fisher Cake has a 25" top tube. This stretches you out behind the front axle instead of closer to on top of it and makes the bike more stable in the high speed rough stuff.

 

[RockiMtn]

Good starting point:

http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/article/m ... tems-2492/

there's a good article link at the end of that article talking about 2x4 bolt stems and about over tightening bolts!

curious about the industry going from 2 bolts to 4 bolts on bar clamps on stems but going from 5 bolt to 4 bolts on cranks.

 

[FluffyChicken]

...curious about the industry going from 2 bolts to 4 bolts on bar clamps on stems but going from 5 bolt to 4 bolts on cranks.

Not read the stem article, but the move from 5 to 4 for cranks is since 5 arms are not necessary for the smaller rings compact drive brought about, 5 arms are still in use for what is now the road compact setup when larger ring 48+ are in use.


I think a similar thing happened but the other way... with the cassette spiders as well, though they started out as 4 arm, but the aim to reduce width of 9 speed rendered 4 arm unusable and now they are at 5 arm for the larger ring setups

 

[24pouces]

Yes, and humans have only 2 arms, until for a fashion reason, someone will decide that 3 is better…

 

[FluffyChicken]

Yes, and humans have only 2 arms, until for a fashion reason, someone will decide that 3 is better…

Nope, you're talking boobies there.