Originally Posted by
cbchess
As you go shorter with a stem the rule of thumb is steering will quicken. but you also have to look at your Head Angle. I think Santa Cruz likes a slack head angle for their frames. So look at your old head angle and look and the new frame head angle. The slacker the angle the more relaxed the bike will handle. These are VERY generalized statements. I had a steep head angle on my XC rig years ago and put a short stem on it and it quickened up the handling a bunch. Now on my Mountain bikes I go for a longer top tube with a slacker angle and a shorter stem. Because of the slacker head angle the shorter stem doesn't matter AS much.
I much prefer a longer TT. The frame will feel like it fits better. You can also run Riser bars to further tune your cockpit.
That's very informative, thanks very much!
FWIW, I recently put a 15 degree 100mm stem on my current ti hardtail, to get a bit more height on the bars. And the steering got remarkably squirrelly. (It's an older Seven hardtail and while I don't know the angles, I think the headtube is quite stubby, so the bars are way lower than the seat... That's what I tried to counteract with the goofy 15 degree stem. Now I'm going back to a 10 degree Thomson.)
PS -- On my (also older) Large Gary Fisher Sugar1, I have a top tube that's almost as long as the Superlight XL's! And it feels pretty nice.
It's as you say: it feels like it fits better. Thanks again