Roadie: I just spent $3K on ABC Co.'s latest wheelset because its marketing and self-funded studies have shown them to save 5 watts total. It’s the latest innovation in wheels.
also Roadie: Let’s make fun of the 180cm man using 155mm cranks because those are for women. Let’s not at all ask him why he’s using them and just judge him because, you know, tradition.
There’s a lot of d-baggery in the cycling world. My pet peeve is people who tell everyone to “slam that stem” without seeing the person on the bike, because apparently spacers = slow.
Yes, but you might say “chuck some deep sections on that bike and you’ve got a real weapon”. They’re not actually saying to do that, they’re pointing out that it would be nice if you could.
I won two races on regular aluminum rims with a 50mm spacer stack this year. Suck it, roadies.
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(I have Zipp 808s with tubulars I ride for tris… and I’ve flipped my stem and shortened it and removed 20mm of spacers since… the transition has begun.)
Not sure it’s just an aesthetic thing, having a lot of spacers can impact handling and stiffness as a longer steerer tube will flex more. In extreme cases have read that it’s potentially a safety issue, though in 20+ years of cycling I’ve never known anybody to break a steerer tube so I’m guessing it would have to be something fairly extreme e.g. 100mm of spacers and a large muscular rider who puts a lot of force through the bars.
Certainly wouldn’t make fun of anybody for having lots of spacers. But I do think that all things being equal fewer spacers is better (even if it’s only for aesthetic reasons!), and for the vast majority of body shapes there is a bike size and geometry available that would allow the bike to fit without having to resort to a bunch of spacers. Which means that those people riding around with a lot of them either didn’t get a fit before buying (very common), got a bad fit or bad advice from their LBS (sadly also pretty common) or bought a bike that just isn’t a very good fit for how they ride. An example of the latter is a guy in our area who is a fairly recreational rider who likes a more upright position (or maybe needs a more upright position due to flexibility or other limiters) but for some reason also decided that he wanted a super aero bike. So instead of getting the Roubaix that the LBS recommended, he bought a Venge which has about 50mm less stack in the same size, so he’s riding around with about as many spacers as it’s possible to have on an uncut steerer tube instead of having a slammed stem. This does seem a bit daft to me and he’s attracted a few fairly good-natured jibes about it from other people, but he also loves the bike and it’s his money so fair enough I guess!