 You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
My new Sektor air fork came to replace my 4yo Toras and I'm not totally sure what length to cut. The tora travel is 130 while the new sektor is 150. The tora steerer is 198 and with the big giant head tube it only takes a small spacer. The bar height with the toras was just right. It's clear that they will come up a bit even with a bit more sag so I don't want the bar higher up the steerer. If I cut the steerer to 210 for resale reasons then I will have an ugly bunch of spacers on top.
What to do!?
No, you'll have about 20mm of spacers, whether that's ugly or not is upto your judgement!
I have about 15mm that way the ............... well actualy there is no reason, I'm just to lazy to chop the steerer down any further. If it helps, 200mm is plenty IMO and would leave you with just the 1 spacer (ish) , I'd buy forks right down to 160mm but then I like my bars low.
Ok ta. The min the giant could take with my current stem is 195 because it had a hinormous tall ring reinforced headtube.
FWIW I don't think that shorter steerers are so much a problem for resale nowadays as a lot of frames use integrated or low-stack reducer headsets. I hated the super-short headtube on my Inbred as it meant that I either had to cut my steerer tubes super-short really limiting their resale value (and yeah, I know I swap stuff around too much), or run a bunch of ugly spacers. I've just swapped my Lyriks onto my new hardtail with a shorter headtube than the frame it replaced and found myself with the same problem. I don't see myself selling the Lyriks anytime soon but don't really want to cut the steerer just for aesthetic purposes (I'm sure another frame will be calling me another 6-7 months down the line and with their u-turn conversion they're pretty versatile) - anyway, a bit of experimentation with different sizes and colour combination of spacers (I know I have too much time on my hands and a spacer spares mountain 🙄 ) and I reckon it looks OK.
Personally, I'd never cut a steerer below 200mm. It makes them so much easier to sell on, and I always have 25mm of spacers anyway.