I bought a steel bike a while ago with a very aggressive frame. Even with a stem riser my bars are below my seat.

This is great for racing, but some knee physical therapy that I am doing might force me to raise my bars up higher somehow.

I already have a stem riser on there. If I could avoid putting a second stem riser on my existing stem riser, it would really do my ego a world of good.

I know that I should probably buy a new bike I guess, but I don't want to spend the $$ right now. The bike frame fits me all right, it's just made for racing is all. I need to make it more "comfortable."

So what is the "highest" stem out there that you have ever seen? Is there one that's like a 60 degree rise and 120mm or anything like that? I'm having trouble finding one.

Thanks for suggestions!

1 1/8" Threadless ???? 1" Quill??? MTB or Road bars, or ...

Nitto Technomic (or however it's spelled) is among the tallest.

120mm is a pretty long reach, seems like an odd combo with hi-rise.

Sorry, I think I must have gotten my terminology wrong. The stem I use is the type that you find on newer bikes. Like this:

Nothing wrong with a stem riser. Bikes are made to look a certain way that the designers feel will appeal to the most people. Some bikes need "help" to be made useful for many users, so rock that stem riser and don't look back.

Probably the highest you can get it is with this Ritchey adjustable stem: https://www.ritcheylogic.com/dyn_prodfamily.php?k=98295


30deg road stem, goes up to 120mm length: https://www.ritcheylogic.com/dyn_prodfamily.php?k=98291

Not a huge Ritchey fan but I have the 30deg stem on my bike, easiest one to find. The adjustable goes up to 45deg. The others are 30deg.

Tallest I have found other than old Salsa steel stems.

The Ritchey Adjustable stem is available in 120mm and can be set for a fair amount of rise.

https://www.ritcheylogic.com/dyn_prodfamily.php?k=98293

That Deda stem's for road, right? I don't think they do MTB stems, anyways. Note that most of the stems already mentioned are 31.8. If you've a 31.8 bar already, you're in business. Otherwise you might wanna consider buying a new bar for extreme rise on a road bike bar. Typical 26mm road stems in hi-rise are quite rare.

Here's a 35 degree stem in 31.8.

The Ritchey adjustable creaks. I tried one of those once, it made me nuts.

Thanks. That's the problem - I already have a stem riser installed! I just don't want to put a stem riser on top of a stem riser. That would be getting a little ridiculous.

I thought that the manufactures recommendations on stem risers was to only use one. At least on my delta riser package it stated that.

should have just bought a proper bike instead

I'm feeling that your frame is way too small for you. Get a frame that fits (or at least fits much better than the one you have)

Yes, either that or proper knees, but since I can't do either right now I'll go with a higher stem. It looks like 40-degree, 120mm is the highest non-adjustable and 45-degree 120mm is the highest Ritchey. Thanks for the suggestions!

Dimension stems come in every length/angle/clamp combination you can imagine. They're the best deal for the price you can find (around $20-30 US). They make 120 mm, 130 mm, 45 deg rise stems, but you might have to look around a bit to find one.

I use a "Steerer Extender" and it's works great and doesn't creak or anything like that. My bike had a riser stem but it didn't do enough when I swapped in drop bars.

https://www.amazon.com/Dimension-Stee.../dp/B001C6DTZY

DSC_8522.jpg

I'm having trouble figuring out how handlebar position would affect the knees in any discernible measure. I'll take your word for it, though.

You often want to maintain reach when increasing rise. Geometry dictates if you start with a 120mm 90degree stem, if you were to replace it with a 130degree riser stem, you'd need 135mm extension. (at the very least -- as your hands come up they can reach further forward, so you often want to both increase rise and reach, say if you are fitting someone 6'4" to the largest bike your shop sells and still coming up short.)

Stem manufacturers seem to have no grasp of this geometry though.

I just bought one of these: +40 degree rise, 180mm extension

Wow, now that is a long stem. I did not realize that anybody manufactured 180 mm stems. Where did you buy it from?

There's an ebay seller in the UK that has them.

https://shop.ebay.com/?_nkw=180mm+onza

Also it's good to work the geometry when trying to balance rise and reach. I like this stem calculator:

https://alex.phred.org/stemchart/Default.aspx

Oooh, yeah. Never seen a threadless stem that big. there are a couple on ebay.co.uk

That onza stem is a pretty good idea! It's a stem for a trials bike, never really thought of that.

Tandem cyclists are often looking for stems >130mm to use for the stoker on the back, whose stem clamps to the captain's seatpost and then projects backwards. Trials stems are quite popular with those folks, and a couple of the tandem retailers stock extra-long stems, see here for a 175mm or 185mm stem with 30 or 35 degree rise.