How to change your handlebar height

Resident Cycling Weekly mechanic Al Vines shows you how to change your handlebar height

[Applause] hi my name is al and today I’m going to show you how to change your handlebar height by adjusting your stem in order to change the height of your bars and adjust your stem there’s not many tools that you need at all in most cases just some allen keys will do the job although some stems will use stalks fasteners so you may need stalks keys and we would recommend the use of the torque wrench just to make sure everything’s tightened up properly the amount of adjustment that you’ve got regarding bahai is limited by the length of steerer tube that you’ve got here so you’ll have a certain number of spaces and we’re basically going to be moving those around in order to lift or lower the stem if you want to go any further then you’re going to need a different stem with either a positive or negative rise we wouldn’t recommend using any more than 30 mil worth of spaces underneath the stem because it can put extra strain on your steerer tube which could cause it to fail first thing that we’re going to do is we’re going to loosen the stem so in this case it’s a t30 torx key and we’re undoing the pinch bolt there and that will leave the stem free to move on the steerer tube with that loose we’re going to move on to the preload bolt here on the top and all at this bolt and the top cap does is it compresses the whole bearing assembly by pushing the stem down pre loading the bearings and getting rid of any slop in the steering you should only be nipped up if it’s over tightened he’ll crush your bearings the steering won’t feel so good so with that removed and this bolt undone you’ll see I’m holding the fork reason for that is it is free to drop out at any time there’s nothing holding it in any more a little bit of friction so now we’re able to remove our stem like so and we can reposition these spaces wherever we like in order to change the height so what we’re going to do is we’re going to put all our spaces in this instance underneath the stem so we’ve got two tens two fives so 30 mil no more than that no bike should ever come supplied with more than that anyway really especially with a carbon steerer and we must always ensure that there’s only a couple of MIL gap between the top of the steerer tube and the edge of the stem anymore and you will again be putting too much stress on the steerer tube which could cause it to fail which would obviously be horrible that gap there is absolutely necessary in order to take the recess here on the top cap and to give a little bit of adjustment so as we tighten this preload bolt there’s enough space for everything to compress if the steer is flush with the top of the stem it won’t go anywhere and you never bear to adjust your headset properly so we’re just going to nip this bolt up check that everything’s straight you might want to do that on the floor just to get it spot on and then it’s literally finger and thumb and actually leave the bearings turning nice and smoothly with no play once that’s done you need to retighten the stem I’m just going to nip that up and then it’s going to finish that off of the torque wrench most stems will have a torque setting on them in this case it’s 8 Newton meters so set your torque wrench appropriately and tighten away and that’s that stems being raised it’s a good idea just to do some final checks before you go out on the road to double-check that adjustment of your headset see everything should be feeling nice and smooth and if you grab the bars and try and flex them side to side then you should feel no player tool again just to make sure stick the front wheel between your legs try and move the stem if it’s all talked up correctly it shouldn’t move but it’s worth checking so that’s it we’re all done ready to go out and hit the road thanks for watching see you next time [Applause]