apom

Hi, I recently bought a Ritchey Adjustable Stem extender so i can change my reach depending on my riding situation however it seems my new Giant MTB has a 1 1/4" steerer vs a 1 1/8" steerer and thus wont fit.

I have looked for suitable stems but there seems to be hardly any 1 1/4" stems and i cant find any that are adjustable. Do i need to change the headset to fit the new stem or am I going about this the wrong way?

thanks for the help.

techsensei

Changing the headset would be impossible unless you fit adapters on the frame and also changed the fork to 1 1/8", because the stem attaches to the fork's steering tube. If you cannot find an adjustable 1 1/4" stem, you could buy a different stem with more rise and/or reach, and swap between the two stems as needed.

apom

ack, ok, not sure why this is so hard.... there seems to be stuff all for 1 1/4" headsets

dabac

It's an attitude thing.
Larger diameter headsets are seen as a performance enchancer, while more rise is seen as a comfort enchancer. These two are seen as mutually exclusive. If you can ride hard enough to need the wider headset, you shouldn't need an upright, casual riding position. You might as well ask for a light weight beach cruiser with aero spokes.
You'll have to wait until 1 1/4" technology has trickled down into casual bikes, at which point the amount of available accessories will increase.

A 1 1/4" fork is likely to have an 1 1/8" inner diameter so what should work is if you can find a 1 1/4" to 1 1/8" shim. That'll let you use an 1 1/8" quill-type steerer tube extender.

But those seem rare.

I did find this chap though: https://www.ebay.com/itm/FSA-Alloy-St...ht_3153wt_1170

If you fit that one inside your current steerer tube, then fit this one : https://www.ebay.com/itm/bicycle-stem...2#ht_110wt_932 inside that one, you should then be free to fit whatever 1 1/8" stuff you choose.

Or buy this guy: https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Quill-St...#ht_2702wt_932 and an extra 25.4-28.6 mm shim and you're again free to use any 1 1/8" item.

Do note that I haven't tried this myself, and piling part on part like this isn't generally done or entirely approved. Consider yourself warned.

apom

Thanks Dabac. I didn't setout to make this hard, simply bought a mountain bike from my local bike shop here in China that sells mainly Giant bikes. Then got the usual cruisers bits that they didn't have, stem adjuster, schwalbe marathon plus tires, bag for under the seat and some ergo grips and bar ends. I didn't now that Giant OD2 had gone away from standard sizing otherwise i would have not got the bike. The other option, i think is to get some new bars with a riser so its a little more comfortable.