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I have always wondered about that. I'm not saying a load of spacers is always bad, but a stack of £0,05 aluminium spacers must have an effect on ride quality. There is a reason why the headset bearings aren't in the middle of your headtube..
Jaap-
but a stack of £0,05 aluminium spacers must have an effect on ride quality.
It's not so much the type of spacers, but the amount of exposed steerer, unfortunately I cannot comment on how much it cause an effect on ride quality.
I enquired with Cannondale about fitting a steerer extension on their Cannondale Synapse alu a while ago with an alu steerer as a customer want his handlebar even higher, they actually don't recommend this at all.
I will have to look into this, I know a lots of manufacturers actually says it would be dangerous to have too much steerer on their bicycle.
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Not really, a longer headtube would have the same impact on handling, obviously the higher you go the shorter the effective tt becomes (due to headtube angle). It's not like your putting extreme forces through the headset bearings, the limiting factor is the steerer material, you wouldn't want Surly fitting full carbon forks and then bung a shitload of spacers on there.
edscoble
jontea
Moreso, while the Stack of the Surly is consistent, because of the top tube length being irregular to says the least, this mean people end up sizing down and required more headset spacer, which in itself as you said, not a bad thing, but if you add a full carbon fork, there is a limit on how high you can set the steerer too (Specialized Tarmac for instance have a maximum stack of 40mm)