My son is using my old conquest as his bike. Its a 58 frame, but the stem is really long, I typically ride a 62cm bike, I can’t recall if years ago I changed the stem or if the Conquest was always long as a cyclocross bike.
If I get a shorter stem, should I keep the angle the same? The actual seat height we settled on was about half what is showing in this picture.
Last week he did 18 miles with me with about 1000 feet of climbing (mostly in the 2nd half of the ride, we rode point to point) and his back was fine. Today we did 24 and his back got very tight towards the end. Visually he looks a little stretched. I was thinking get a shorter stem for a bit and I can always put the old one on later.
A shorter stem will reduce reach (bike + stem + handlebar) but also stack (bike+ headset + spacers + stem); it looks as if you have at most a 5mm spacer above the current stem, which will offer some compensation for a shorter stem. The current stem looks like a 120mm(ish) so could go down 20-30mm; you will want to keep the new stem inverted (even go with a more angled, say from 6* that looks like in the picture to a 10*).
A question I have is where does your son keep his hands for most of the ride. If on the hoods, I would go for a handlebar with less reach; at the same time, you could one with raise flats that will increase stack.
I hope this helps.
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How tall is your son?
Unless he is very tall or has a very long torso, the extremely long stem on the white redline is almost certainly too long. Likely by a lot.
He’s 5’10”. It’s too big. Wanted to hold off on a new bike for him until he showed he was serious. Ordered a new stem.
