How To Adjust Your Handlebar Height

How to change your handlebar height

Transcript

00:00Hi my name's Al and today I'm going to show you how to change your handlebar height by adjusting

00:09your stem. In order to change the height of your bars and adjust your stem there's not many tools

00:16that you need at all. In most cases just some allen keys will do the job, although some stems

00:21will use torx fasteners so you may need torx keys and we would recommend the use of a torque wrench

00:27just to make sure everything's tightened up properly. The amount of adjustment that you've

00:32got regarding bar height is limited by the length of steerer tube that you've got here so you'll have

00:39a certain number of spacers and we're basically going to be moving those around in order to lift

00:44or lower the stem. If you want to go any further then you're going to need a different stem with

00:50either a positive or a negative rise. We wouldn't recommend using any more than 30 mil worth of

00:57spacers underneath the stem because it can put extra strain on your steerer tube which could cause it

01:04to fail. First thing that we're going to do is we're going to loosen the stem so in this case it's a

01:08T30 Torx key and we're undoing the pinch bolt there and that will leave the stem free to move on the

01:20steerer tube. With that loose we're going to move on to the preload bolt here on the top and all that

01:33this bolt and the top cap does is it compresses the whole bearing assembly by pushing the stem down,

01:40preloading the bearings and getting rid of any slop in the steering. It should only be nipped up if it's

01:49over tightened it will crush your bearings, the steering won't feel so good. So with that removed and

01:56this bolt undone you'll see I'm holding the fork. The reason for that is it is free to drop out at any time.

02:02There's nothing holding it in anymore other than a bit of friction. So now we're able to remove our stem

02:13like so and we can reposition these spaces wherever we like in order to change the height. So what we're

02:24going to do is we're going to put all our spaces in this instance underneath the stem. So we've got

02:34two 10s, two 5s so 30 mil no more than that. No bike should ever come supplied with more than that

02:42anyway really especially with a carbon steerer and we must always ensure that there's only a couple of

02:55mil gap between the top of the steerer tube and the edge of the stem. Any more and you will again be

03:04putting too much stress on the steerer tube which could cause it to fail which would obviously be

03:08horrible. That gap there is absolutely necessary in order to take the recess here on the top cap and to

03:19give a little bit of adjustment so as we tighten this preload bolt there's enough space for everything

03:25to compress. If the steerer was flush with the top of the stem it wouldn't go anywhere and you'd never

03:31be able to adjust your headset properly. So we're just going to nip this bolt up. Check that everything's

03:38straight. You might want to do that on the floor just to get it spot on and then it's literally finger

03:50and thumb and that should leave the bearings turning nice and smoothly with no play. Once that's done

04:00you just need to retighten the stem we're just going to nip that up and then just going to finish that

04:09off with a torque wrench. Most stems will have a torque setting on them in this case it's eight

04:14Newton meters so set your torque wrench appropriately and tighten away and that's that. Stem's been raised.

04:28It's a good idea just to do some final checks before you go out on the road to double check that

04:36adjustment of your headset so everything should be feeling nice and smooth and if you grab the bars

04:42and try and flex them side to side then you should feel no play at all. Again just to make sure stick the

04:54front wheel between your legs try and move the stem. If it's all torped up correctly it shouldn't move

05:00but it's worth checking. So that's it we're all done ready to go out and hit the road. Thanks for watching

05:07see you next time.