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I've just fitted a 10mm longer travel fork (+17mm AtoC) and at the same time, now not being limited by the short steerer, am tempted to have a play with spacers before I cut the steerer, so have fitted 15mm more spacers under the stem (had 15mm before, so now at 30mm).
Gemmetry Calc reckons the geo has changed as below (bike is an XXL Jeffsy 29, I'm 6ft 3in):
66 HA to 65.3
77 SA to 76.3
1277 wheelbase to 1284
BB drop from -32 to -26
stack 640 to 646
reach 520 to 512
Just been up for a quick 2 minute spin in the road in the dark (because, well, winter and I'm working tomorrow...) and it feels waaaay 'floppier' at slow speed. Bar height feels OK though, definitely lighter front end.
Both the fork charge and the extra 15mm spacers will have increased my bar height and decreased my reach slightly... so the important question is:
Will I die?
Yes.
But probably of old age.
That said I went to great lengths to lower the bars on my winter ss and I have to admit it was much nicer to ride with the bars feeling slightly too high previously :s
TBH I struggle mostly with super steep stuff so a bit of extra bar height probably won't be bad, I might take out 10mm of spacers, but leave enough above to be able to move it up 10mm if needed. So that would be 22mm extra height, or just below that because of the head angle.
This is my 150/160mm travel 29er, coil sprung FS so speed and nimble handling on flat trails isn't exactly the primary goal. I'll have a hardtail for that sort of thing soon.
Embrace the high bars! I’ve got 40mm risers on both bikes, stems aren’t quite slammed and the stack on my 29er is ~640mm. And I’m a lot shorter than you.
Used to run my bars much lower but with longer slacker bikes with steeper seat angles higher just works better.
Nearly all Stack measurements on XL and XXL bikes are too short. Most Bike designers have got it wrong. (For what I like anyway)
🙂
I always thought that (even though I ride a medium). The head tube doesn't seem to get any longer on bigger bikes so stack remains the same across the sizes but the taller rider is going be have a much higher saddle and therefore much bigger saddle to bar drop and also be much higher up when standing on pedals.
Look at a road bike and the head tube length increases as the bike size increases.
I have to admit it was much nicer to ride with the bars feeling slightly too high previously :s
Sounds like they weren't too high.
I’m 6’2” and My XL Banshee paradox has -
Stack 669mm
Spacers. 25mm
Bar rise. 38mm
It’s the best fitting bike I have owned.
I've got 35mm rise bars too, but yeah deffo going to be running them higher than before.
My bars are still way below my saddle at pedalling position regardless.
Just out of interest did you change to a different offset fork.
Going about 30mm higher and a bit slacker in one go will alter the way you weight the front end, I tried my friends bike with same travel and wheel size but a much higher bar height and found it unnerving in the corners, his bar height is about 1085mm.
44mm offset on both forks so the same, doing some quick calculations it seems my bar height is around 1090 with 20mm of spacers. 20 mm higher than before.