Bikeforums.net is a forum about nothing but bikes. Our community can help you find information about hard-to-find and localized information like bicycle tours, specialties like where in your area to have your recumbent bike serviced, or what are the best bicycle tires and seats for the activities you use your bike for.rtay
02-12-09, 04:07 AM
OK, I posted a thread a while ago having a moan about the frame size of my new bike, which I was afraid was too big. I was getting lower back aches and this nearly drove me insane cos I had just bought a shiny new bike which I thought I might have to replace. Anyway, I flipped the 6 degree stem and the riding is now great with the slightly higher bars. No pain at all, and getting a lot of power into the bike. But is riding with a flipped stem correct? Sometimes I feel that when I pull on the bars, I get a little lift, which may be due to this. I could go put a 1cm spacer to raise the bar a little and put a 10mm shorter stem in, which would put the bars in nearly the same position, but will this change anything? After riding for a week, I am finding that I could afford to get lower though - but when I flipped the stem back, it feels a little too low and the back starts to tighten up again... so I flipped it back. Maybe after more riding I could get the bars lower again.... my riding is getting more and more aggressive, and I do get quite low, but it seems perhaps the reach is still a little too long. Any thoughts are appreciated...