There are a couple of ways that you can adjust the handlebars on your bike, having a go at this will help you to better fit your bike, giving you better performance or a more comfortable ride! Find out ways to adjust your bike’s handlebars here.

Moving the Stem Up and Down

On every bike the stem attaches the handlebars to the body of the bike. Typically these stems are adjustable, they can move up and down to alter the height of the handlebars. On the stem you may find a maximum and minimum insertion marks engraved onto it. This means that for your safety you shouldn’t go beyond these marks otherwise the handlebars would be unstable and unsafe. If you do find that you need to go past these marks to adjust the height of your handlebars, you can buy a new, longer stem with will do the job, but be sure that the new stem is the same size as the original one!

To adjust the height of the stem, there are a couple of different systems for doing this, most commonly your bike will have one of two types of stem for adjusting the height of your handlebars. A quill stem is the simplest; it has a nut on top of the stem that you loosen with an Allen key. The other type of stem is called an Ahead stem, where the nuts and other fixings are located on the side of the stem, more on these types of stem in a moment.

The Quill Stem

The quill stem is the easiest to adjust, and can be done in minutes. All you need to do is loosen the nut on top of the stem by turning the Allen key anticlockwise about twice. Then the handlebars should be able to move up and down freely once this nut is loose. You can then pull your handlebars up, or push them down to adjust the height and then tighten up the nut back up again once the desired height is achieved. Remember not to go beyond the max/min insertion marks and also remember to make sure that the handlebars are straight, and in align with the front wheel of the bike so that as you move the handlebars the wheel should also move at the same degree remember to check this as you tighten the nut back up.


The Ahead Stem

On the other hand the ahead stem is more difficult to adjust, and many are unsafe to do it by yourself. A lot more care should be taken with this type of fixing, if the a-head stem is an adjustable one. If you aren’t confident to do it yourself, it’s best to take your bike to a bike should who will be happy to help you adjust your handlebars safely. Some of these a-head stems are not adjustable and a new higher alternative a-head stem will need to be bought instead, this is common to buy a new stem with this type of fixing as it’s the only way to adjust the height of your handlebars. There are gadgets out there that act like extensions for your original stem, such as a Delta Aheadset Raiser that once fitted can give you an extra height of around 50mm.