How short a stem can you get away with on a gravel bike?

[spdntrxi]

It all depends on Geo but unless things are really sketchy you'll adapt between bikes after a couple km. Between my bikes I have as long as 130mm and as short as 80mm stems and going from my raciest bike to the gravel bike is a jump but it feels normal after a short while. Flaired bars are pretty polarizing I'm a massive fan but some of my riding buddies hate them, same can be said about oval rings (I'm also a fan of those).

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Love it... when electronic droppers get a little cheaper .. I’m getting one. I take the long way home from group rides and some sections are worthy of a dropper

[mattyNor]

It all depends on Geo but unless things are really sketchy you'll adapt between bikes after a couple km. Between my bikes I have as long as 130mm and as short as 80mm stems and going from my raciest bike to the gravel bike is a jump but it feels normal after a short while. Flaired bars are pretty polarizing I'm a massive fan but some of my riding buddies hate them, same can be said about oval rings (I'm also a fan of those).

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Love it... when electronic droppers get a little cheaper .. I’m getting one. I take the long way home from group rides and some sections are worthy of a dropper

Truthfully the dropper doesn't work yet, plan is to make my own wireless dropper but haven't gotten around to starting yet. We did just get 1" of snow so it may be time.....

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[spdntrxi]

WTB byways ?

rim internal width and tire external width?... I'm dying to try these tires but worried they might not fit on my bike. Dont wanna by tires and be bummed.

[mattyNor]

Close, wtb riddlers on a 30mm internal rim measure to ~49. For the most part wtb tires run pretty true to size unless you put them on absurdly wide rims. A customer of mine got the 37 riddlers and even on a 25 internal rim they only got as big as 36

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[spdntrxi]

good to know... if they stay 47 or 48 I'm good to go (no mud) currently my rims are 24mm internal but thinking about getting another set of 650b since I enjoy them and they will be 27mm wide.

so those riddlers are 700x45 then ? jump to 49 is pretty big but your rims are very wide

[DJT21]

Short stems are fine providing the bike fits. Trying to compensate for an ill fitting bike with a short stem could well give you some problems. Likely the front centre is too long, there won't be enough weight forward on the front wheel and the bike will handle badly. Front wheel grip and confident cornering will suffer. Go and see a reputable bike fitter; ask them to sort her position out. People tend to fit short stems when they're sitting too upright.

[fa63]

I remember reading somewhere that the Lauf True Grit's geometry is optimized for shorter stems. That is a great looking bike by the way!

It all depends on Geo but unless things are really sketchy you'll adapt between bikes after a couple km. Between my bikes I have as long as 130mm and as short as 80mm stems and going from my raciest bike to the gravel bike is a jump but it feels normal after a short while. Flaired bars are pretty polarizing I'm a massive fan but some of my riding buddies hate them, same can be said about oval rings (I'm also a fan of those).

[mattyNor]

I remember reading somewhere that the Lauf True Grit's geometry is optimized for shorter stems. That is a great looking bike by the way!

It all depends on Geo but unless things are really sketchy you'll adapt between bikes after a couple km. Between my bikes I have as long as 130mm and as short as 80mm stems and going from my raciest bike to the gravel bike is a jump but it feels normal after a short while. Flaired bars are pretty polarizing I'm a massive fan but some of my riding buddies hate them, same can be said about oval rings (I'm also a fan of those).

Thanks!! Once I get the dropper working I'll do a proper thread about it. It's sub 20lbs which is I figure is fairly respectable.

The frames do run large, my medium has a 57ish toptube so I'm running an 80 with very short reach bars. Usually I'm on a 54-55 tt with 100-110 stem and a more traditional bar. It's weird Geo but it seems to work, even with such big tires I don't have toe overlap and there's more space for frame bags!

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[TheRich]

Will gravel bikes ever learn the lesson of moving the front wheel forward (while maintaining the same position through increased reach and shorter stems) from mountain bikes?

Mountain bikes are regularly asked to make far sharper turns than any other type of bike, and they do it with long wheelbases and slack head tubes, but everyone says how important it is for road (including dirt road) bikes to have super aggressive angles in order to make relatively gentle turns (in bicycle terms). That twitchy-ness might not matter on pavement, but it teaches the habit of being very gentle with your control inputs which limits what you can do when things get tighter.

Nothing big, just another inch/few CM or so of reach and just a little slacker. Makes it easier to keep your weight on your feet (to maximize low grip situations), moves your hands back slightly relative to the front axle and adds reassuring "weight" or "heft" to the steering. Hand position being critical because that is the end of the lever that is based at the front contact patch that determines how easy it is to go flying over the bars. There's a spectrum of the feeling of resistance or mass when manipulating something, too light or too heavy is not good, but a definite feeling of mass does help when you make fine adjustments to something, think of trying to shoot a 6oz rifle freeehand, you'd be all over the place, same thing if it weighed 30lbs.

[wheelsONfire]

Will gravel bikes ever learn the lesson of moving the front wheel forward (while maintaining the same position through increased reach and shorter stems) from mountain bikes?

Mountain bikes are regularly asked to make far sharper turns than any other type of bike, and they do it with long wheelbases and slack head tubes, but everyone says how important it is for road (including dirt road) bikes to have super aggressive angles in order to make relatively gentle turns (in bicycle terms). That twitchy-ness might not matter on pavement, but it teaches the habit of being very gentle with your control inputs which limits what you can do when things get tighter.

Nothing big, just another inch/few CM or so of reach and just a little slacker. Makes it easier to keep your weight on your feet (to maximize low grip situations), moves your hands back slightly relative to the front axle and adds reassuring "weight" or "heft" to the steering. Hand position being critical because that is the end of the lever that is based at the front contact patch that determines how easy it is to go flying over the bars. There's a spectrum of the feeling of resistance or mass when manipulating something, too light or too heavy is not good, but a definite feeling of mass does help when you make fine adjustments to something, think of trying to shoot a 6oz rifle freeehand, you'd be all over the place, same thing if it weighed 30lbs.

Funny you mention this since the Lauf bike is posted all over here. This is exactly what you ask for. If something, they are very low in stack.
Most gravel bikes have short reach and high stack,... so that is more or less the opposite to Lauf.

[TheRich]

Funny you mention this since the Lauf bike is posted all over here. This is exactly what you ask for. If something, they are very low in stack.
Most gravel bikes have short reach and high stack,... so that is more or less the opposite to Lauf.

Aside from the stack height, the True Grit is what you'd end up with if you put a Lauf fork on a CX bike. Everything gets one degree slacker (including the ST) when you lift the front of the bike by ~an inch. It is a step in the right direction.

There's a lot of tradition to fight against with road (-type) bikes though.