Quickly.......

[manual63]

Anyone know of any bicycle shops in the west Suburbs(near Eden Prairie) besides Erik's. I need to get a shorter stem and don't have time to drive into downtown to go to Freewheel or One on One.

I need to go in like a 1/2 hour when I am on lunch.

Thanks.

[noise_is_life]

These might be too far north, but:

Penn on Cedar and Hopkins Crossroad
Bikemaster north of 7 (between wooddale and louisiana)

[KleinCrazy]

Chanhassen,

Bookoo bikes on hwy 5 and dell? can't rember excatly .. south side of hwy 5

can't think of any other.. sorry.

James

[GearDaddy]

Try Tonka Cycle in the strip mall on the SW corner of Excelsior Blvd. and Eden Prairie Rd.

[manual63]

Thanks, I think I will do Tonka Cycle on my lunch break.

Is Bikemaster any good? That used to be the old Bennetts before he grew too fast and went out of business.

[noise_is_life]

Is Bikemaster any good?

I haven't had that much luck there, but I've only tried a few times.

This is based on:

- Long time estimate on a fairly simple repair, I forget what. Erik's ended up doing it much faster.
- Didn't have an XT middle chain ring in stock, but then neither did SLP Erik's, had to go to Penn.

I want to like them because they are really close to home, but so far they haven't overwhelmed me.

They seem kind of oriented towards the low-middle range customer.

[GearDaddy]

Originally posted by manual63
Is Bikemaster any good? That used to be the old Bennetts before he grew too fast and went out of business.

I kind of liked the old Bennett's. That's actually where I purchased my Kona. But Bikemasters seems pretty good. The old Bennett's had the typical "race-bike" oriented stock. Bikemaster's seems to be targeting more of the "everyday rider" clientelle. They sell some nice cruisers, cross bikes, and even some of those electric motor hybrid commuter bikes. I think they sell some BMX stuff too. They also have a lineup of road/mountain bikes too (including the superlight Giant OCR carbon).

I've had good experiences with their service too. I once brought in my road bike with a bent dropout (that's another story). They straightened it out for me in 2 minutes at no charge. Penn Cycle wanted to "schedule me in" to do the same work in a week's time and charge me 20 bucks.

[martini]

I vote for Tonka as well. Goo dguys to deal with and they're smart. be sure to say hello to Luther(tall shop manager) for me. Tell him he's got my fork and I want it back!

[socrates]

Originally posted by KleinCrazy
Chanhassen,

Bookoo bikes on hwy 5 and dell? can't rember excatly .. south side of hwy 5

can't think of any other.. sorry.

James
Bookoo Hwy 5 and 101 SE corner

[manual63]

Originally posted by noise_is_life
They seem kind of oriented towards the low-middle range customer.

So did Tonka Cycle. After going to Erik's and Penn and not finding what I want, a really short MTB stem, I didn't think Tonka would have it. They didn't have much and hardly anything in the high end range. The guy brought out a box of stems and my dream stem was sittin' there in front of me. It was even a Profile which I think is pretty good. Amazing.....they had it......cool.

Thanks to all of you for reacting quite quckly. I was sitting here brain storming on what shops are out here and I just couldn't think of any but the Erik's I have already been to. Then suddenly this idea popped into my head. Why don't I ask in the MORC forums? Like I said before, this site has helped me a lot............

[noise_is_life]

Why do technical riders and freeriders always use really short stems, is it a handling thing?

[manual63]

Yes, it is. Take a string and a pen or pencil. Tie the string to the pencil. start with a longer string like 4" or so and move the pencil to the left and right about how far you would steer. Then make the string 1 1/2" long and do the same thing.

It's less motion to have a shorter stem and your bars pivot closer to the axis of your wheel, rather than swinging from left to right with a long stem. When I ride my Schwinn (long stem) I have to move my arms to the left and right to steer. When I ride my P.2 (short stem), I just turn the bars on their axis. It's like driving a modern sports car (short stem) vs. a '56 caddy (long stem).

Also a shorter stem keeps you from being way over the front of the bike. Longer stems make you lean over your front wheel which makes it easier to go over the bars on logs and other technical things. If your weight is not so far over the front wheel, it is easier to pull up on the front end to go over logs, do drops, and jump. Longer stems cause riders to endo over jumps, I see it all the time over the table in the XX Loop.

One note: if you like to do long rides and a lot of climbs, get a short stem and put on bar ends for the climbs and more forward position on long rides.

My Schwinn is getting the short stem so it will feel much better to me.

[qheuie]

for me it is a handling thing (i am not a freerider, just a rider). i can turn a lot quicker.
i think it helps you get your butt off the back of the seat on the downs, too.

i bet Shad will have more reasons soon..........

[qheuie]

or.. he already beat me :)

[manual63]

Originally posted by qheuie
or.. he already beat me :)

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

[noise_is_life]

That makes sense. For me the long stem helps me keep my front wheel down on climbs (which is also why I switched to a flat bar).

It also seems like too much responsiveness can be a problem climbing because you front wheel can wander all over the place, one of the reasons that people use the Hopey steering damper.

Climbing is a struggle for me so I guess I do everything I can to make it easier.

As far as endos, I haven't had much trouble with that. Probably for the same reason that climbing is a struggle. ;)

I did notice when I switched to a flat bar that it took more work to lift my front wheel over obstacles.

[manual63]

I am just to opposite. The longer stem makes me weave all over the place and a shorter stem gives me more control.

It's like the car thing. A sports car with tighter steering is easier to keep in a lane, but a big gushy steering 70's car drifts all over the place. It's like you have to move a lot futher to make a correction rather than just making small easy quick corrections.

[socrates]

Originally posted by manual63
I am just to opposite. The longer stem makes me weave all over the place and a shorter stem gives me more control.

It's like the car thing. A sports car with tighter steering is easier to keep in a lane, but a big gushy steering 70's car drifts all over the place. It's like you have to move a lot futher to make a correction rather than just making small easy quick corrections.

It's personal preference and probably boils down to what you learned on