[CR]Technomic - Too much of a good thing?

(Example: Framebuilders:Cecil Behringer)

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 06:10:00 -0800 (PST)
From: Jerome & Elizabeth Moos <jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net>
To: Classic Rendezvous <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
In-Reply-To: <017e01c4d0d7$f669ee60$f9ea6644@OFFICECOMPUTER>
Subject: [CR]Technomic - Too much of a good thing?

I've alway seen Technomic stems touted here for their long quill, allowing the bars to be raised to a comfortable height, but I've just encountered a situation in which their quill is TOO long. I recently bought an almost all original 1984 Trek 660 on eBay for $205. It is a 56 cm, though, which is about as tall as I can ride, so I needed a significantly shorter stem on the original SR World Custom bars. I ordered a 6 cm Technomic from Peter White, which arrived in only a couple of days. But when I installed it, I found that the bottom end of the extra long quill bottomed out on the fork crown, or actually probably on the flange of the HS lower fixed cup inside the headtube. At that point, the bars could not be lowered any further, even though they were still a couple of cm above the saddle. While I like to raise the bars even with the saddle, I don't actually like them ABOVE the saddle. So I was forced to use an SR stem with a slightly longer extension, which turned out to be OK in the first long ride on this bike yesterday.

While the large (for me) 56 cm frame caused me to have the saddle rather low, I'm not sure a smaller frame would have helped the situation. On a 54 cm frame more typical for me, I'd have more seatpost showing, but the headtube would be correspondingly shorter, so I might still have had the bars above the saddle. Has anyone else had a problem using Technomics on 56 cm and smaller frames, or do I have disproportionately short legs?

Regards,

Jerry Moos
Houston, TX