HANDLING TWEAKS

Tips to improve how your bike rides

Stem length

A longer stem moves your bodyweight forward, helping you to get weight over the front tyre for more grip through flatter corners. If your bike feels twitchy, it can also help slow down the handling a touch. When sat in the saddle, it will make the front of the bike feel roomier. Fitting a shorter stem quickens the bike’s reactions to cornering inputs. It also pushes your weight further back, so you don’t get pitched forward on steep and rough terrain, and makes manuals easier.

Angle-adjust headset

These can be used to slacken a bike’s head angle, to improve stability at speed and stop you getting pitched over the front. This is particularly useful on older bikes with shorter and more upright frame geometry. They work using cups with offset bearings, which change the angle of your fork’s steerer tube as it goes through your frame’s head tube. Generally, they’re used to knock 0.5 to 1.5 degrees off the head angle, depending on the type of headset your frame is designed to take. Not every bike can accept an angled headset, but they’re increasingly being factoryfitted, to offer riders the opportunity to fine-tune handling and fit.

Offset bushings

Offset shock-mount bushings are another way to relax your bike’s head angle, while also lowering the bottom bracket for improved cornering. They do this by shortening the eye-to-eye length of the rear shock. This doesn’t change the shock stroke, so the same rear-wheel travel is maintained. However, offset bushings slacken the effective seat tube angle by the same amount as the head angle, which may negatively affect climbing. They also reduce the frame’s reach figure slightly. Depending on your frame, they can be used at one or both ends of the shock.

Seat & bar position

Sliding the saddle forward steepens your bike’s effective seat tube angle, which can make pedalling more efficient on steep climbs, and shifts your weight forward, too. However, it shortens the distance from seat to bar so can leave you feeling cramped. Rolling the bar backward in the stem is a way to make your bike feel less stretched-out, without fitting a shorter stem, which may have a more drastic impact on handling.