Stem sell research

forgive me if i ramble a bit here but damn it all i've been having a right mare with stem choice on my mutant genesis flyer. bought the bike about a year ago, set it up fixed and clipless from the get-go and went with a single crosstop lever. then i stripped and re-sprayed it, got some new bars, saddle and have ordered some new hubs to have a go at wheel building. i'm generally having a lot of fun learning more about bike maintenance and tweaking but...

the riding position's never been quite right on this bike. it's good. good enough for me to buy it in the first place but just not exactly right. i'm 5'11" but have pretty short legs for my height so i went for a 54cm frame rather than a 56. probs not the best choice in hindsight. i've always felt like i was putting slightly too much weight on my arms and that i was a little too stretched out even though i have to have the seatpost at full height to get the right leg extension.

the stock stem on a flyer is pretty flat and pretty long although for some reason the bike came set up with a really long steerer and a shitload of spacers under the stem to raise it up. i figured to solve my problem i wanted to bring the bars up a tad more and back towards me a bit so i got a cheap and cheerful short riser stem which fitted fine and as it had an unintrusive 2 bold faceplate meant i could snug the lever right up against it to make more space on my narrow-ish drops. but if anything it made the problem much worse. i felt like i was perched over the bars with way too much weight forward. it was like riding whilst trying to hold a press-up at the halfway point. tried movng the saddle about but to no real avail. my shoulders and hands hurt after 20 minutes on the bike. fail.

so last week i bought another longer riser stem and fitted that. or tried to. the bulky 4 bolt face plate meant that i couldn't get the brake anywhere near it as it impeded it's action. i can't really have it further away as hand space is at a premium on the top of the bars. fail.

so went back to the place where i got the stubby little riser and got another slightly longer riser also with a minimal 2 bolt face plate. i even remembered to buy another brake cable as the short one i'd cut for the stubby wouldn't reach now. i'd figured that much out from the previous riser failure. fitted the new one tonight and discovered that with all those spacers in there not only did it look really seriously goofy but it was way higher that it needed to be. like sit up and beg high. problem is if i take out even half of those spacers i've got a good inch of steerer poking up though the top of the stem. i experiment with adding the spacers above the stem just as an interim arrangement till i can do something more permanant but discover that the new stem is just slightly (like 1.5mm) slimmer than the previous 3 i've tried and as a result, even with all those spacers in (in any combination under or above the stem) the top cap won't grip the stem (or spacers). it just clamps straight onto the steerer providing no compacting force to the headset. i can't find anything to use as a washer and i have no tool to take any length off the steerer. fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

so after all that fucking about, 4 seperate stems, each requiring different length brake cables and a fair bit of faffing, i've just put the original stock one back on.

pain. in. the. arse.

sorry. i know that was boring, but i needed to vent a little.

anyone want to buy three cheap crap riser stems?