Sleighteem

Hi. I'm trying to understand the real advantage to risers, and my simpleton grasp of physics is getting in my way. Hear me out, won't you? If I visualize where in space my grips will be comfy in relation to the headtube, I can see a few combinations of stems and bars to get them there. The riser bar and quill stem combo is popular enough, but when you think of, it adds up to more distance traveled (and thus more steel and alloy to flex) from the top of your headtube to the line which passes through your grips than, say, the distance travelled in the configuration of a flat bar and mtb stem with rise. The quill stem, like say the Nitto Jaguar, is as classic as classic gets, but it contains an acute angle. The mtb stem with rise contains an obtuse angle. The shortest distance between two points should indeed be the stiffer one, yes? So why the rush to buy quills - and if not quills, then mtb stems mounted so they are parallel to the ground - and risers? (Granted, if we're talking about Jaguars to begin with, we're not talking about a lot of flex, but that's not the point.) Let me explain my own bicycle as an example. It has a one-inch HT and a threadless steerer. I have an mtb stem with rise, which I mount in the rise position (as opposed to the more aggressive, inverted, flat or "drop" position) and I use a flat bar. I could instead flip my stem and use a riser bar, thus more or less duplicating the quill/riser configuration, and placing my grips in the identical places in space. But why add a riser to the mix? Why would *anyone* add a riser to the mix when the flat bar and stem with rise will serve them better? What am I missing? Thanks for reading!

667

Risers tend to sweep back more. Also, when you rotate the riser in the stem, you have more options to fine tune your fit.

geeknerd99

Risers give your hands an angle that's hard to imitate with flats. There's the slight sweep, as well as the inward tilt (dunno what that's called). I guess you COULD make flats that give the exact hand position as risers, but I can't see them as looking very good.

Sleighteem

Ah! I've left out slope! That other bend, apart from sweep, that distinguishes risers from flats! However, slope only exists if you rotate your riser 'til the plane of its sweep is no longer parallel to the ground. So, if a riser is set up "normally," it will have no slope. And if it has no slope, and if the flat you're comparing it to has the same sweep, then the riser and the swept flat are identical. Conversely, the swept flat, if rotated, can gain the same slope as the rotated riser. The point to all this is that the riser and the swept flat are equally versatile, but the riser/quill is (should?) be more flexible. And no, I'm not crazy.