You are reading a single comment by @Oswald and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@Oswald
^^ First off I'm not in a place to say what will work for you. But, I am totally against the 'slam the stem' purely on aesthetic grounds. It needs to be right for you if your going to use the bike as intended.
Anyway, yes you could swap stems about to adjust the height and reach slightly .. http://yojimg.net/bike/web_tools/stem.php .. also keeping 20mm, even if you put the spacer on top of the stem, allows for some movement 15mm with a 5mm above the stem .. Obviously a bike fit is the way forwards but being a student that will be a luxury?
In your position I'd look in the ads / eBay and buy some cheap stems (any old crap) of different angles and lengths around what you have and different size spacers. Then start swapping them in and out, one change at a time, to see if you can find the sweetest spot before you do anything to the steerer or buy a nice stem. Remember it may look w**k and it will take you a while to do this with a long enough ride between changes but you can pile spacers on top and under the stem to make the right height while you play. And at the end you can probably dump the stems back into ads / eBay for roughly what you paid.
Oh and to weigh it roughly weigh yourself on a set of bathroom scales or the like and then weigh yourself holding the bike .. Difference is bike weight obviously.