Originally Posted by
cny-bikeman
- The shortest you can go is 40mm, which will make the handling slightly quicker, but not very noticibly. People sometimes exaggerate the effect of changing stem length on steering. The difference in steering is proportional to the change in distance from the center of the fork colum to your hands, and in the case of going from 70 mm to 40/50 mm that is a 3.5/2.5% change.
I am always a little puzzled about the discussions on the effect of stem length on "quickness" of handling. It seems to me that, at speed, a bike is not really "steered" the way, for example, a delta trike is. You lean the bike (either by weight shift or countersteering, which is another whole discussion) and the front wheel is "steered" enough that you keep going rather than falling over. If you really had to steer, you would not be able to turn while riding no hands. Also, when you move from hoods to tops to curves the lever changes by up to a few cm, but the bike handling does not. I have changed my stem length over a 30 mm range and various rise angles on my current bike, and have not noticed change in handling. Conversely, bikes which have seemed to have quick handling have been more difficult to ride no hands than bikes with slower handling.