Flipping the stem on your Specialized is easy, but there are other adjustments you can perform also. I flipped my stem last year on my Sequoia and removed three spacers (not all at once, but gradually). By the end of the summer I was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable on the hoods...kind of stretched. That was OK for a while because I'm most comfortable in the drops and I thought maybe it was just a learning curve. A few weeks ago I decided the learning curve had gone on long enough and I replace my stem with a shorter one. I went from a 130 cm all the way down to a 100 cm. Now I'm comfortable on the hoods again and even more comfortable in the drops. I have another spacer that I'll probably remove this year and the shims on a Specialized are tapered to allow even more adjustment. If you remove the spacers and find it comfortable, you'll probably want your LBS to trim the top of your fork off so it's not sticking above your bars.
Edit: The tapered shims allow for incremental adjustments.
Last edited by swan652; 06-25-08 at 08:09 AM.