Bike Tinker

Custom high-rise stems

Written by

philip

in

My riding yesterday up in the woods showed me just how poor my fitness and bike handling skills have become. Rather than inspire me to ride more, it made me want a custom stem to put the midge drop bars a little higher and closer! Specifically, a 52 x 180 stem like the one illustrated below.

BikeCAD drawing courtesy M. Whitmore

Anyway, instead of riding this morning, I researched custom stems.
Vanilla, Sycip, et al. seem to only make stems for their custom frame orders. MAP cycles (one of my favorite Portland builders) will do a custom $325 stem. Ahearne will do a fillet brazed stem starting at $275.

It looks like the bargainz are the $135 stem ($165 with removable face plate) from Rex Cycles, a possible $175 Rock Lobster (a good match for a Bontrager, I think), and Willits’, $150 Scorcher stem. Wes Williams has made hundreds of super-high-rise stems for exactly this purpose.

Comments

10 responses to “Custom high-rise stems”

  1. miles Avatar
    miles

    Dont forget rick @ hunter. He does fillet brazed stems for 150

    Reply
  2. Philip Williamson Avatar
    Philip Williamson

    Hey, Miles! Thanks – that’s a great price, and he really should be a first choice. http://www.huntercycles.com/

    Reply
  3. Cafn8 Avatar
    Cafn8

    Other than the *NKR fit, how well has the steer-tube extender been working out?

    *not quite right

    Reply
  4. Philip Williamson Avatar
    Philip Williamson

    Can8 – How did I miss this comment for four months?!
    The stem extender actually works great. I put on a shorter stem, and the fit is pretty dialed.

    I also talked to Winter Bicycles about making a custom LD or high-rise stem. When the money and priorities come together, I'll get one from him. $200 – $250, depending on the style.

    Reply
  5. kbvelo Avatar
    kbvelo

    Nice bike. Cool T-shirt too. KB

    Reply
  6. kbvelo Avatar
    kbvelo

    Nice bike… Cool t-shirt too. KB

    Reply
  7. Philip Williamson Avatar
    Philip Williamson

    Thanks, KBVelo. It's a great bike, and I may actually go back to the original bars. The tee shirt keeps getting retired, and then I pull it out of the rag pile before it gets gunked up.

    Reply
  8. Winter Bicycles Avatar
    Winter Bicycles

    Hey Philip!

    I just put together a "themed" stem that might be along the lines of what you are thinking (sans the thematic elements): http://winterbicycles.blogspot.com/2010/08/monster-stem.html

    Thanks for the link, BTW!

    Reply
  9. Philip Williamson Avatar
    Philip Williamson

    Eric – that Monster Stem is about perfect. I'd want a normal diameter clamp, but the four-bolt is a key feature.
    I like the thematic scarring, too.

    I semi-featured your stem on my Bike Tinker bike blog. I hope you don't mind.

    Reply
  10. Winter Bicycles Avatar
    Winter Bicycles

    Thanks!

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

More posts