Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil

I find flipping a stem to be easy. Especially if you are flipping it down, to where there is even less tension on your cables. I've changed out stems 5 times in the past 18 months, on 3 different bikes.

Just make sure you don't lift the front of your bike, after you remove the stem, or the fork could drop out. Then you've got to get your headset put back together correctly. Don't ask me how I know this.

You won't have to remove anything from your handlebars, except for the stem clamp.

You could remove a spacer, but you'll still have to take the stem off of the steerer tube to do that. Your headset will look a little strange if you do this, as you will have a bit of steerer tube sticking up above your stem. Don't see that on too many bikes. You'd probably move your spacer to above the stem.