Ten days ago I purchased a new Cervelo Aspero from my LBS. I asked them to swap the Easton EA50 stem that came with the bike for a shorter one, but they would only do it if I paid full price for it (no credit for the perfectly new OEM stem already on the bike). A bit miffed at this, I declined and bought myself a new Easton EA70 stem on line and installed it myself. What I found when I swapped the stems is that the shop had cut the carbon steerer tube too short. The top of the steerer tube was about 8 mm below the top of the stem clamp. That's not a good thing with carbon tubes, The only way to correct this is to remove a few spacers from below the stem (there were no spacers above it - the top cap was installed directly on the top of the stem) but this would, obviously, lower my stem by about 1 cm.

Normally I wouldn't care, but I bought the bike because it fit me just right. With a lower stem - not so much. I don't want or need to be that low. This is a gravel bike, not a racer.

When I took the bike back to the store today the owner was there, and he acted like I was crazy. I showed him the Enve Composites video on their YouTube channel that recommend exactly what I was telling him (put a spacer above the stem, avoid clamping on a carbon steerer tube that is beneath the top of the stem clamp) but he didn't care.

I just cannot win.