Hello! I am trying to get salsa woodchipper bars to fit a bit better. Right now the hoods feel good, but the drops feel really close and far down. I am considering an aggressive riser stem (35 degrees, 60mm) from my current stem (0 degrees, 40mm). So do you think this will improve the fit? A professional fit is too expensive for me right now, so that’s out of the question unfortunately.
by Nate4car
7 Comments
Couple more details. The new stem would be 35.5mm higher, and 2.6mm longer. I am doing a bikepacking trip soon, and would like to dial in the fit before leaving late November
r/bikewrench
Getting drop bar fit on a mountain bike frame can be tough. That’s an aggressive saddle to bar drop for bike packing and off road. That stem sounds like a good start. I would also be curious to level the bars so the drops are closer to level and slide the hoods back to a good position.
So, the Woodchipper is what I’d consider an outlier shape and really best suited for a high-stack frame (originally it came out around the 1st-Gen Fargo).
Something like a Cowchipper (to stay in the Salsa range) will get the drops higher up while maintaining the hood position without resorting to wonky stems.
Before spending money, modern bars are meant to have the top part parallel to the ground all the way until it bends down and the hoods top surface aligning with it to form a continuity of the cockpit
So rotate them then reposition your hoods to get a correct angle for your hands. It will feel way closer this way.
You can also head to r/bikefit were the instructions are reposted on almost every post and I think there is a wiki or a bunch of links in the sidebar
Yes, that’s exactly what I did to get drops on my 2014 hardrock
Also, check out the [stem comparison tool](http://yojimg.net/bike/web_tools/stem.php). It’s helpful for comparing options
That sounds like a plan. The Woodchipper is kind of hard to get the positioning right on. It may be where you can get only get it right for one or the other, the drops or the hoods. I think fundamentally it’s meant to have the main position be the drops, so a longer, taller stem should help.
I think that’s why it never really caught on as a mainstream bar, too finicky on positioning.