Just this year, Surly removed any restrictions on steerer tube length from their warranty language. The old warranty was invalidated, supposedly, if the steerer protruded more than 100 mm (4") above the headtube/headset. We at HC have been ignoring that for years, but this year Surly gave their blessing to long steerer tubes with the phrase, IIRC, "go nuts". LHT steerer length for 700C wheels is 320 mm (about 13") and for 26" wheels and 56cm+ frames, it's 380 mm (just over 15"). For most people, the full-length steerer is plenty to get the bars high enough. Even when we cut some off, I always leave an extra 10-15 mm, just in case the rider wants to go a little higher someday without a new up-angle stem. Anyway, this is a case where the conventional wisdom about threadless steerers being universally too short is wrong. Incidentally, I don't believe this is a case of "the industry" seeing the light as much as a case of saving money by not pre-cutting the steerers.
It's really nothing new that bike shops are selling non-racer bikes. Everyday Mongo and I fix up old bikes made in the past 1-50 years. Most are hybrids or comfort bikes or mountain bikes or 1970s and 80s 10-speeds or English 3-speeds and the like. The fraction of older racing-inspired bikes that come through for service is tiny. I suspect this means that people have mostly been buying non-racing bikes for the past 50 years. Of course, the shops like to push the sexier stuff. When I worked at Freewheel, which is a big Trek shop (and former BStone dealer) in Minneapolis, we had lots of racy bikes on display to greet customers when they walked in, but I sold probably 2-3 Trek 520 touring bikes for every racing-style bike, and probably 20 $400 hybrids for every race bike. I don't recall selling even one $5,000-10,000 Madone, even though we had them to sell. On Saturday, September 8, 2012 2:53:49 PM UTC-5, Tony Lockhart wrote: > > It's nice to hear LBS folks saying that their sales are coming primarily > from regular people. Kinda makes me wonder if more and more people are > realizing the enjoyment that comes with cycling. Surlys are great bikes and > it makes sense that they're increasing in popularity. > > I have a conjecture about the high steer tubes. I speculate that the bikes > at your LBS are built up with uncut steer tubes so customers have the > option of fine tuning their handlebar height. Perhaps potential buyers get > the opportunity to mix and match washers to find the ideal height when > going in for a fitting. > > On Saturday, September 8, 2012 11:10:22 AM UTC-7, lungimsam wrote: >> >> Sorry for the typos. I wonder if quill stems will be coming back anytime >>> soon. >>> >> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rbw-owners-bunch/-/jrrrvmZhlmQJ. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
