Spacers
 

Maybe this is a ridiculous question.

But I see people who post bikes with lots of spacers get ridiculed. Not that it's a big deal or anything but how does someone go from a couple spacers to no spacers?

can you prep for that, or is it just the way your body is. do you remove 1 spacer a season? i'm not sure.

Quit worrying about ridiculous things on internet forums.

A LOT of spacers (we're talking giraffe-like here) indicates either a poorly fit frame, or a rider with some flexibility issues.

But there's nothing wrong with using spacers to fit your handlebar height to your body relative to the frame. Back in the days of quill stems (before spacers) you'd just raise or lower that piece. Now that threadless steerers are de rigeur, this "stem-slamming" nonsense is starting to spread around.

So yes, it's a ridiculous question. Go ride your bike, spacers and all, and enjoy it because it fits you. Or; don't remove spacers because it might look better on an internet forum, remove spacers because it will solve a fit issue.

So much that ^^^

The "flip it" comments are silly. Ride your bike how it fits you, spacers or not and flipped or not.

you get flexible by riding in the drops and by riding more, and especially by having a good stretch after your ride.

doing this and nothing else, I went from being unable to touch my toes-- probably 1.5" from it-- to easily touching the floor. can't quite get my palms flat on the ground yet but I'd give it a year.

you can also do yoga. I did for a little bit, because my wife is very into yoga. I quickly concluded it wasn't my strong suit. :lol: I did not stick with it long enough to gain any benefits, so as I said, I gained a lot of flexibility from riding and normal stretching. stretch after a ride, not before unless you keep it real easy and short. warm up by riding slowly instead.

on the bike I went from 30mm of spacers (yes) on a 90mm +6deg stem to no spacers on a 110mm -6deg stem. I did not do this for vanity. I started to feel cramped on the bike, and I went longer and lower quite naturally.

do not move your seat to adjust your reach. that will seriously screw up your knees, sooner or later.

FWIW, the bike of a guy that's probably faster than all the guys that post "slam it" and/or "flip it" in here:

http://velonews.competitor.com/files...-4-560x421.jpg

Source: http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/...-izalco_232437

True, but even though Huff is running 2omm or so of spacers, he's probably still got 100mm or more drop from the seat to the bars.

with a lot of spacers (speaking about 2.5cm and up), it usually represent a poor size of frame and the person should have gone to a bigger size with a higher headtube height. there are some issues with flexure in the front end with too much spacers and as long as the stem is within the height prescribed by the manufacturer, then we are really talking about visual factors. People who ridicule are the same purist that we see in other trolling threads.

^ By that logic, I would have had to have gone with an XXL frame and a 90mm stem.

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i1...willier3-1.jpg

Admittedly, I don't particularly care for the aesthetic in the pic, and when I'm done dialing in the fit, I'll lower the bars about a cm, and flip the stem up, ending up with just a 5mm spacer or so. But as pictured, it's within the manufacturer's spec, and extremely stiff.

this is sort of what I was getting it. I figured it had to do a bit with flexibility as well.

here is my bike

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-3...711_084816.jpg

The spacers don't bug me at all. What bugs me is I go to the gym regularly and while i'm in shape with regards to cardiovascular strength and even fitness, my flexibility is the worst out of everyone i know. I just can't bend and flex. i'm TERRIBLE at it.

So i was thinking maybe it might help if i ride in the drops more as I currently do most of my riding on the hoods and really only go into the drops descending. I thought also if i did it more and more, i can slowly remove the spacers and it would help my flexibility.

That's only a rule for the Hot or Not thread really. Most of those guys don't actually ride their bikes. They are too busy cleaning their white garage doors and staging their bike to take a new picture.

can you ride in the drops at all? can you do it for 5 minutes straight? 10? an hour?

that's how you start. once you're flexible and strong enough in the right places do to that, you might start to feel cramped. that's when you look at lowering your bars, changing to bars with more drop, different stem, etc.

if you're not flexible enough to ride in the drops a lot right now, don't lower your bars yet. it won't help.

also, you could have saddle issues riding in lower. your hips will rotate and weight will be carried differently. it will hurt your junk if your saddle isn't right, or the angle isn't.

Do stretches. It takes time, as in years. Keep at it. Don't be in a hurry to move your bars down. People who do wind up not being able to pedal effectively while in the drops, which is wrong.

Improving and maintaining flexibility will also reduce chances of injury.

How do you like the 2013 Red? My SRAM reps have been bugging me to get testimonials.

So far, I really like it. The front shifting with the Yaw derailleur, and New Red Sram chainrings is great. It's faster an more reliable than my old bike with D/A 7800 and FSA rings, and at least as good, perhaps slightly better than full D/A 7800.

I never used SRAM before, so I can't compare it to the previous Red first hand, but it definitely shifts better in the front than the previous Red was reported to shift.

One big plus for me was having the power meter integrated into the group.

Also I really like the ability to pin the shifter back to the bars in a sprint, and shift up under load, which is new to me coming from Shimano.

pinning the shifters back to the bars during a sprint is something that SRAM users love, similar to the "dumping" feature of Campy shifters. I have some time in the Red '13, but not nearly enough to really feel the improvement in the shifting, but I am glad someone can give some positive feedback to it.