- If you have ever thought in the past
about stem length on your road bike,
it is probably because you've been
thinking about comfort and fit on your bike.
However, mountain bikers, when they think
about the length of their stems,
they are thinking more about the handling of the bike,
and the way it feels when they stear.
- Yeah, so could we change the way that our road bikes feel
by messing around with stem length?
Could we make them more nimble, more agile, faster even?
- We've been thinking about this subject
because of the current trend amongst professional cyclists
who are trying to get longer and lower at the front end,
in order to become more aerodynamic.
The problem with that is that they are
choosing frames which are one size smaller
than they really should be riding, and therefore,
the reach is too short.
And to compensate for this, they are using
some humongous stems, sometimes up to
14 or even 15 centimeters long.
- 15 centimeters, that's like six inches Dan,
and that is huge.
Surely, that is gonna make things a little bit
difficult in the steering department.
Surely they'd be better off with an 11 centimeter stem,
a bit more standard,
but even, wouldn't things be better with an 8.
- Oh.
- Should we find out?
- Let's do it.
We've got a selection of the new PRO vibe aerodynamic stems
to try out on Dan's bike.
First of all, we've got this little stubby,
eight centimeter number.
We've got an 11 centimeter one already on the bike,
and then finally, we've got this humongous
14 centimeter stem.
- That looks longer than 14 centimeters. That's six inches.
- It does look big, doesn't it?
It depends on where you measure it from.
You always go from center to center
when you measure the stem.
- Slight illusion there.
What we are going to do is a little course
we've set here in suburbia, a little bit
like a kid's day skills course.
What we're gonna do is weave in and out of these cones,
around the round about just behind you, and back again.
At first to see, and mainly to see, how it feels
with the different stem lengths,
but we are also going to time it,
just to see if there's any statistical difference.
- And also find out who's king of the car park skills.
- Me or Dan, bring it on.
- Three,
two,
one,
go.
Oh, no, he's 11.98, but with a 10 second penalty.
- Ten second penalty? No, I'm not having that.
Three,
two,
one,
go.
I think he's fluffed it.
- Have I?
- 11.77.
- Three,
two,
one,
go.
Whoa, oh looking fast, looking really fast.
11.17, it's a PB.
- Oh, it is, is it?
- Yeah.
Three,
two,
one,
go.
12.14.
- Whoa.
- The reason that we think there might be a difference
is that stem length affects the steering arc.
The shorter the stem, the less you will need
to move your hands in order to turn the wheel a set amount.
That's one reason why mountain bikers prefer short stems,
better for weaving around trees.
Now, stem length isn't the only thing governing handling.
The head angle and the trail of the bike
give built in handling traits,
like the DNA of the bike.
But changing stems can have a huge difference.
What happens, then, on the slow speed test?
- The results are in, Si, and what I can tell you
is that basically, we got better as we went on,
with practice.
We were both quickest on the 8 centimeter at the end.
And I also have to tell you, unfortunately,
you were better on every single run.
I'm devastated.
- I don't feel so bad about the rubbish results, then.
Okay, given that practice clearly makes perfect,
can we infer anything from the feel?
Did it feel different?
- Well, I was expecting a much bigger difference
in feel between the stems, because there's quite a
big difference between 14 and 8, but actually, what I felt
was that I was just comfortable in the 14 centimeter,
'cause that's closest to my normal riding position.
- Yeah, well I definitely felt that the 8 centimeter
was easier to weave through the cones
then weirdly, it was actually harder
to get around the bottom corner,
so I feel that maybe we need to move
from this kind of artificial challenge
to a real world challenge, cause, how many
Tour de France stages will have riders weaving through cones
and then chuck in a u-turn in a road?
- That is true. There's the occasional dog
runs out into the peloton, isn't there,
and sometimes you have to weave around a couple
of spectators to get to the sign on, but I take your point.
Descending challenge, you think?
- Descending challenge.
- Real world.
- You know, it does feel twitchy. My god.
- Aaa.
- It's responsive.
Maybe a bit too responsive. I'm not sure I like that.
- And go.
- That feels better, heaps better.
- Wow, that made a heck of a difference.
Just a totally different animal down there.
That's the kind of bike that I know and love.
Size matters, clearly, when you're going fast.
Those of you that are familiar with the
new PRO vibe handlebar and stem will note
that we're not exactly getting the most
out of its aerodynamic properties,
and that's because we're still running this
external DI2 junction box, whereas, we should really
be using a hidden junction box
in the end of the handlebar there,
'cause all the cables can route internally,
through the bars and out at this point here,
into the stem and then out of the stem
through that hole at the back,
then actually down into the steerer tube,
completely hidden away.
Three, two, one, go. Wow, rolling out the big guns.
- Whoa, well I'll tell you what,
the difference between this and the 11,
is nowhere near as big as the 11 and the 8,
but it does feel, it feels really stable,
and particularly interesting,
it feels really good around corners,
like the bike just wants to rail.
That has surprised me a lot.
Dan, I've got some results.
- Go ahead.
- It's highly traffic dependent.
- Yeah. Yeah, I thought so.
My last run was easily the fastest,
because I wasn't held up by multiple cars and a tractor.
- Well, you'll also be pleased to know
that you have the fastest of the day.
- Oh, yes.
- So I may be car park king,
but you are downhill demon.
- That is good to hear.
In terms of how it felt down the descent, though,
I was really at home on this one.
I realized when I was going down the hill
that you don't turn the bars much at all
you're literally banking around the corners.
Having that long stem where it's slightly harder
to turn the bars actually made me feel a lot more stable.
I was carving and flowing through those corners.
- Carving and flowing.
Well, in contrast, the 80 mm stem was utterly terrifying
from the moment I set off and got above 20 mph,
it felt way, way too twitchy, and really
not good through corners at all,
and then I suppose the 110 was the Goldilocks, really.
It didn't feel quite as stable,
but then, it just felt right.
- Yeah, I was happy enough on the 110.
I think one thing we should mention, though,
is that in our pro days, can we mention that?
We were trying to get long and low and aerodynamic,
and so quite often we favored the long stems,
and so that is something we've been used to
for many, many years, isn't it?
- Well, it is, but I have, since retiring and getting older,
gone shorter, so I now use a 110 mm stem.
But it did feel good, nevertheless,
going back onto a longer stem.
Should you go and buy a longer stem, then,
to mimic these results?
I don't think you should, given that, actually,
bike fit would probably be the determining factor.
But don't be put off by experimenting
with a longer stem, I think, bikes feel good.
- Now before we conducted our very own
stem length experiment, we did consult
with bike design guru, Tom Sturdy,
who typically has already done quite a lot
of experimenting himself.
And what he has found is that you're probably
not going to be able to find much of a difference
between a long bike with a short stem
versus a shorter bike with a long stem.
But he does say that that choice is very important
for shorter riders due to the limit of wheel sizes.
If you are a shorter rider, you really want
to go for a longer frame with a shorter stem.
- Yeah, and then in order to offset that twitchiness
that we've just been experiencing, you then hope
that the actual geometry of the bike,
like you talked about, the DNA of it,
would actually mean that it had more inbuilt stability.
But then, thinking about that point, actually,
although stem length doesn't have much of an effect
on the way it rides, actually, in order to feel the bike
as it was designed to be felt,
you should probably use it with the stem length
that it was specced with, I guess,
as the designer intended.
- Yeah, it does start to get a bit complicated, doesn't it?
But you can rest assured that there is a good reason
why bike geometry has remained pretty much the same
for decades.
- Right then.
I guess all we can ask at this point
is for you to subscribe to GCN.
To do that, just click on the globe.
And if you'd like to watch a couple more videos,
Matt did a great video where he asked the pros
why they slam their stems, that's just down there.
- Yeah, or a few years ago, Si had a look
into how you set your bike and stem up,
and you can find that video just down here.
- A few years ago. It goes back a bit now.
- Yeah, you looked really young.