I occurs to me that most of the sloping stems are made of steel, not alloy, making them stiffer. When I was racing alot of the track riders were pretty big and strong fellows, especially in the sprints, there is alot of pulling up on the handlebars, as the legs are driving down. Perhaps the downward angle of the stem also adds rigidity to the pulling up motion..I tried a cinelli stem when I first went to the track and fealt it was not stiff enough and quickly changed to a steel, down sloping stem and fealt quite a difference..
Ed Busch
Vonore, Tennessee USA
> Most of the bikes I see with down sloping stems don't have the stem
> inserted all the way into the frame and this is true for mid to large
> frames where there is still plenty of room in the headtube for further
> insertion. To my way of thinking, it's better to use a Cinelli 1-A with a
> normal slope and insert it further down. Feng Shui tells us that an upward
> pointy object in your face will only cause unconscious fear to develop in
> the athlete and those downward sloping stems give me the willys.
>
> If you need to get down further then why not bend your elbows?
>
> Garth Libre in Miami Florida USA