Originally Posted by bikemig

I picked up a 1992 Trek 950; the bike is sweet with lugs, true temper tubing, and Deore LX parts (except for the few bits that the PO changed out). The paint job is in really excellent shape. It also has a super long wheelbase and so I want to do a drop bar conversion and turn it into a road/offroad touring bike.

Here is my problem. The bike has a 1 and 1/8 inch threaded fork which limits my ability to find tall stems. The stem needs to be around 8 and 1/2 above the top tube. That's a lot. The top tube though is the right length for me and the saddle height is of course a non-issue.

I think I have two options:

(1) I own a one inch nitto dirt drop stem that would do the job height wise but of course it is the wrong size. I could look around for a shim but I'm a little leery of this. Probably no good reason but I'm really conservative--for pretty obvious reasons I think--when it comes to stems and handlebars. Anyone have any experience in shimming a one inch quill stem so it fits into a 1 and 1/8 inch fork? I haven't had a lot of luck finding a shim like this; perhaps someone here could point me in the right direction?

(2) Alternatively I could get a threaded to threadless converter like this nitto, https://www.benscycle.com/p-2509-nit...-286254mm.aspx. I really, really like nitto products and trust them. It's not very long though. I should be able to find a threadless stem that angles upward sharply.

Am I missing something here? Is there another solution that I should be thinking about? I'd like to get this right the first time.