I got a used road bike with a 40mm quill stem, and rode it for 1400 miles. It's not exactly BF orthodoxy, but it worked for me. I had a professional fit (Hans @ Bannings, now East-West Bikes in Fullerton) using that bike and he saw no point in changing the stem (why fix what isn't broke?).

People tend to think of fit in terms of point estimates, when quite possibly they would be better served if they thought in terms of intervals. In other words, I have two road bikes on which I have ridden a total of 5500 miles, roughly. On one, the reach is about 56cm, and on the other, about 61cm (measured as shown below). Both are very comfortable to me, and I've done many 50-ish mile rides on them. My CC fit computer results give me a reach (top tube + stem length = reach) of 63-66cm. I tried riding with a reach closer to what the CC fit computer output, but I felt very stretched out, and it caused me some back pain. So I seem to be comfortable with a reach somewhere between 56cm and 61cm. BTW my main road bike now has a 70mm stem (previously it was 100mm). That 30mm was the difference between comfort and discomfort.



Switching components (other than your stem) can change how stretched out you are. I never really intended to try the recommendation of the CC fit computer, but switching saddle and bars effectively got me there. First I got a great buy on some carbon bars off eBay. The hoods were farther forward (relative to my old bars) by nearly 3 cm, and then I changed my saddle, and ended up sitting father back once everything was adjusted. The net effect was that I had to stretch out a lot more, and my back was killing me on every ride, starting at about 40 miles. Shortening the stem by 3cm did the trick.

Of course YMMV.