Has riding your bike become a pain in the neck? Then take a close look at the bike’s stem.
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by Tamia Nelson | January 29, 2018

Have you found that riding your bike has become a pain in the neck? (Or back? Or shoulder?) If you have, the solution to the problem could require more than an attitude adjustment. You may need a shorter, higher stem. While standover height gets most attention from cyclists when they’re shopping for a bike, reach is important, too. If you have to stretch to reach the bars, or if you find yourself forced into an exaggerated “racing crouch” when you really want to sit tall in the saddle, the answer might be a smaller frame. Or it could be as simple as swapping out your stem.

As luck would have it, I didn’t have to. My Surly Long Haul Trucker had a short, high-rise stem right out of the box. But then I changed my handlebars, and the stock stem wouldn’t accommodate the new bars’ larger-diameter tubing. So I needed to find a comparable stem with a larger maw.

And that’s what I did. Here’s how my new stem looked when it was mounted on the Trucker:

It’s easy to see that this is a Dimension road stem, but the specifications are less obvious. It’s 75 mm long and it rises 35 degrees above the horizontal. (The maker describes it as having a 125-degree rise, using the vertical plane as the reference.) That’s the same reach and rise as my Trucker’s stock stem, and it’s about as short and steep as stems get.

Now here’s the big picture, showing how my new stem keeps my bars within easy reach:

Back in the day, when all bikes came with threaded headsets, it was simple to raise your stem. But the steering tubes on modern threadless headsets are cut to length. So if you want to lift the stem (in order to raise your bars higher), you have no choice but to fit a new stem with a steeper angle. It’s not a perfect solution—it’s better to get the steering tube cut to the right length to begin with—but it is a workable one.

As I can attest. If you take a close look at the photo above, you’ll see that the bars rise a couple of inches above the nose of the saddle. (Note that my 42 cm Trucker has a sloping top tube. Don’t let that fool you. My bike is on the level. And so am I!) Two inches may not seem like much, but it makes a big difference in comfort as the miles fly by. The bottom line? If riding has become a pain in the neck, consider swapping your stock stem for one with a shorter reach and a higher rise. This may be all that’s needed.