Stem height

[gf1959]

I've got a Giant road bike which i'm happy with except for the bars,for me they're about an inch too high. It's a threadless headset with 4 spacers,i've heard you can undo the stem and put some/all the spacers above it,thereby
lowering the bars.
Anyone know how hard is this to do,what happens when the top bolt is
removed? Does everything fall to pieces?!
I'm wary of messing it up,i guess the stem bolts have to be loosened
before undoing the top bolt,any advice appreciated.
Maybe there's other ways of achieving the same thing?
Geoff

 

[Joe24]

The whole bike falls appart, even the frame.

 

[Joe24]

But seriously, you can undo the top cap, then stem bolts and the spaces and stem will just come off easy. So you can take off the stem, mess about with the spacers, and put it all back together.
Have confidence, you cant really mess up. The head set bearing bit will/should keep the forks in.
To put it back together, set the stem up pointing in line with the wheel, put the top cap on and tighten that bolt up. Not too much though! Then do the stem bolts.

Oh, the bolts can be loosened in any order really, the stem wont come off until the top cap does though.

 

[John the Monkey]

To the op - firstly, on an aheadset (threadless headset) the top cap doesn't hold the whole thing together - what it does is "pre-load" the stack of spacers and stem to remove any slack in the whole thing.

When you undo the top bolt, the whole thing will stay together as long as your stem bolts (the ones at the non-handlebar end) aren't loose as well.

Once you've undone (and removed) your top cap, undo the stem bolts and lift the stem off the fork steerer. I'd suggest moving one spacer at a time, so take one off, and replace the stem. Put the spacer back on top of the stem, and then place the top cap on. Tighten the stem bolts slightly at this point. Tighten the top cap until there's no play in the stack - (easiest way to tell is by holding the fork & rocking the frame back and forth - it shouldn't "knock"). Once you're happy, align the bars with the front wheel[1] and tighten your stem bolts fully.

It can take a bit of time to get used to the new position.

[1] A steel rule held alongside the bar clamp can provide a good visual reference for doing this.

 

[John the Monkey]

Video threadless headset tutorial http://bicycletutor.com/adjust-threadless-headset/

 

[gf1959]

Thanks guys,that's very helpful,much better info than i found on the net. Think i can do this after all. Being super-cautious i of course completely believed the part where you said the whole bike falls to bits,but reading on i calmed down a little!
Thanks again everyone.

 

[John the Monkey]

It's not hard - the only thing you MUST remember is to do up everything again, and to keep the height of the stack the same overall (that's why the spacer you take out goes back above the stem).

 

[HLaB]

Thanks for reminding me I knew there was something I meant to do. Done it its only a 10 minutes job.

 

[gf1959]

Yeah,the stack height being kept the same,i've heard some pple remove the spacers and
cut off the corresponding tube length,but that's a bit drastic. I have an old Peugeot racer where i keep the bars lower than the Giant's,i like to feel more sort of directly over the front wheel,gives a better sense of control.
Very subjective thing i guess,but after a pretty bad accident last year the more in control i feel the better.

 

[tandemman]

You could always try the sheldon trick of using a seatpost clamp on top of the headset, thereby leaving the entire length of steerer tube free to play with stem height

 

[gf1959]

That Sheldon guy sure knows his bikes,thanks for that extra tip. I'll try the spacer idea first,time i got some first-hand experience,the above posts have clarified the matter considerably.