A Silly Centimeter

 It's just a silly centimeter!

Looks dorky, right? 8 cm RedShift ShockStop stem on Zio's gravel bike, the one he rides on..gravel vs paved roads. But it makes the bike fit so Zio's shoulders no longer hurt, so he doesn't care how dorky it looks!

This video reminded him of the saga. Modern bikes in t-shirt sizes are a PITA, especially as in the video you are trying to make two the same when it comes to your position on them. In my case both were marked M as in medium, but they were far from the same size!

After a LOT of fooling around with his first e-gravel bike Zio thought he had it dialed-in. But despite it and the Bianchi in the photos both being M, it wasn't as simple as putting the same length stem on and calling it good. The other bike came with an 8 cm stem right outta the box but it was way too short! A 10 cm stem was fitted but it was impossible to get the handlebars low enough thanks to the "relaxed/gravel" frame geometry. So Zio had to live with the higher handlebars, even swapping to a different saddle to handle the extra weight now back there.

But with that (and other) changes the bike finally felt good and was comfortable to ride. One might think another bike in size M could be set up similarly? Zio already had a ShockStop stem in 10 cm so that went on, but proved way too long. He'd tried a cheap used 9 cm stem so he thought this would be just right but wasted his money on the 9 cm ShockStop. GRRRrr!

In desperation he slapped on the 8 cm stem the other bike came with. Amazingly a tape measure showed the distance from the tip of the saddle to the center of the stem was now the same as the other bike. But the handlebars were not too high, they were too low! Easy enough to fix, just flip the stem over to + 6 degrees, who cares what it looks like? Finally, another ShockStop (he found he really liked the extra cushion after trying the 8 cm fixed stem) was ordered and installed.

Now, almost 2 years later, both bikes fit and feel the same. No more sore shoulders! Some say a pro bike-fit would have saved a lot of grief but the real problem is no two bike makers think a size M is the same and none of 'em give you real specifications to determine which size is right for you. But the industry doesn't much care, they leave that to the bike fitters to deal with!

So if your bike isn't comfortable, don't give up! If you're not confident on your ability to make it fit better, find some expert help. You'll be glad you did.