I am riding Scott Spark RC Evo 2023 in Medium size with stock stem (integrated 740mm handlebar with 60mm stem).
Bike fitter told that i am fine with this stem but sometimes (e.q. on tight turns) i feel like stem is too short…
What is your experiance with modern geo MTBs with short stem and if you switched to longer one what is your experiance?
What about it makes it feel too short in turns? A shorter stem allows for better handling in tight places, like mountain biking. The downside is it can feel a bit twitchy. A longer stem is more stable, but can start to feel like steering a boat. Usually people go with shorter stems rather than longer stems in mountain biking.
It is like handlebar is “too close to my hips” feeling. In tight switchbacks
You might be the first person I’ve ever heard reference that issue, lol. Maybe your handlebars are too wide?
6 cm stem is pretty normal these days for XC and trail. You might need to size up to get longer reach.
I’ve fit lots of these. One possibility is steeper seat tube angle is pushing your hips closer to the bars.
Totally depends on your anatomical build as to what stem length you need… it’s never as easy as “XC bikes get a 60 mm stem” or stuff like that.
Saddle is almost full forward.
Yeah if the bike also feels a bit too front end heavy at times that’s your tell. Just speaking from experience but I do lots of full sus bikes for folks.
Can you please describe “too frontend heavy”?
How tall are you and what size Spark are you riding ?
XC bike stem length and angle is a balance act between seated pedaling efficiency and comfort and DH (standing) weight distribution.
I’m 184cm tall and ride a L Scott Scale (close geometry to the Spark). The stock 70mm stem felt fine going DH, but, spending 50% of my time on the road bike, the seated position felt completely off. Eventually ended on a 90mm -30° combo that feels much nicer seating down with little to no penalty doing DH.
About your comment on the front heavy feeling, I’d first check your sizing as well as your suspension setup. Unbalanced suspension pressures can cause that
Hi. Spark RC here. I had the same issue. Came off a Trek Supercaliber G2 to a Spark RC- stack/reach, stem length, etc all lined right up for the stock 70mm stem to work for me. However, same as you, it felt short and I had some handling issues trying to push the bike through turns. Went to a 80 and BOOM!- were good now. Seems for whatever reason, the Spark’s do better with a slightly longer stem (at least for me, based on what I came off of).
I was also on the previous gen Spark RC with a stock 70 stem and it worked great. Who knows. Ive also noticed the rear shock requires quite a bit more pressure than the previous generation did for me (same body weight). Have you had the same experience?
70mm stem on old spark worked for me also (probably)…
I am 179cm with really short inseam 82 and saddle height is 71.5cm playing with 5mm spacer or 0. Arm span iz also 179cm. Spark is Medium.
For example i rode venge 54 with default 10cm stem and also Crux with 10cm.
On previous spark I had fox and I was about 190psi and now on RS i am 155psi to get 28% of sag. I am 69kg.