DMF wrote:Please, please stop spreading the "short stems make for twitchy handling" myth. A shorter stem will make a bike more twitchy, a short stem on its own won't make a bike more twitchy. And re: what a frame is designed for, the same frame fits different people diffidently, again with the body weight distribution between front and rear wheel axles which differs a lot rider to rider. Bikes are sold with 110mm stems out of aesthetic reasons.
Thank you for the info on stem length. For me personally, I feel that the move to a 70mm stem has effected my handling in some way. Perhaps a better word to describe the effect of the shorter stem would be "snappy," I'm not sure. But regardless, I have personally not preferred the change. I've gone back and forth between sizes over the past year and in some situations the shorter stem feels more responsive than I would like it to be compared to the longer stems.
My primary issue at the moment is that I have a frame that, while perfectly fine in regards to seat tube and head tube length, is causing me issues when it comes to top tube and reach, resulting in having to set it to uncommon degrees to compensate.
I'd like to change to a smaller geometry that only requires me to compensate with a longer seatpost, leaving me open to better options in regards to stems and setbacks.
Camilo wrote:If you have long legs, I'm kind of surprised you have a zero setback seat post unless all of that length is in the lower legs as opposed to the femurs. I have longish legs and have found that in general I need quite a bit more setback than many riders with more normal proportions. Surely your fitter and you didn't use a zero setback seatpost to get you further forward because the top tube's too long? As opposed to using saddle setback as the way to get your proper position over the pedals? Just hypothesizing here.
The zero setback post was something I switched to in effort to shorten the reach without much regard to it's effects on my legs. I would like to move back to a setback post.
Thanks for the advice on WSD. Going through lists of frame geometries I actually did come across a few that would work.