Originally Posted by
Glenn1234
It's threaded. It's got the bolt in the center you loosen along with the wedge part. I'm aware of the fix, part of why I'm asking is if it would be a good idea, would it change the handling tremendously, make the stem/headset/fork/whatever more fragile, likely to break? I do like the bike, for most part, except for this issue, which is why I was wondering what *would* change if I lengthened the stem.
Your handling will change minimally, if at all, and you'll feel better on the bike, that's what will happen. You may need to swap out cables/housing, depending on how much slack you have, but this is really a no-brainer.
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/handsup.html - This is a good article on the subject.