- This is the raised reversed
stem by Be More bikes. And I don't really have
to say much about it because we're all thinking the same thing. That looks unstable. (upbeat music) I mean, it's supposed
to be like that, right? Like it's supposed to be. And you would be right to be skeptical. This is a $400 stem that sits directly above your steer tube. And the creator claims that it just improves your
bike in every single way and for me that doesn't
pass the smell test. Now if you are understanding
of bike geometry is like mine, then we're thinking that
looks like you would die if you descended on it, and it looks like you would
die if you cornered on it, and it looks like you would
die if you climbed on it. And if you just basically sat on your bike and took one crank, you would just die. And so I just took this
for a ride and did I die? (upbeat music) I'm still alive. Actually not only did I not die, but the trail died because I murdered it. (upbeat music) Yes, it's actually frustrating
how well this descends and it didn't even take
a lot of getting used to. I was pretty much confident
on it immediately. And April 1st was a few
days ago as of filming this and this is not a joke. It's actually good for descending. (mellow jazz music) Now, I was surprised, but not that surprised, because the day before I spoke
to the creator of this stem. It's a guy by the name of Bronson. He's in his twenties and he actually races mountain bikes. Last week he raced downhill
in the expert category with this stem on his bike, and he won it by seven seconds. (rock music) And that's not an isolated incident. He wins races. He posts insane times. He's a really, really capable rider. And he's not delusional. He's not cocky. He's a very measured, intelligent person. And he had a lot of good reasons
for why he built this stem. He developed this after
two years of messing around with different heights, different designs, trying them on different bicycles different head tube
angles, different styles. And even today, he doesn't really have a viable
business model to sell this. It looks ridiculous. It's $400. No one's gonna buy it. And he's not stupid. He knows that. He built this for himself because he needed to
build it to win races. (electro music) How? How is that possible? You all know, whether you know about
bike geometry or not, you all know this is unstable. Just look at it. Let me break down why
you think it's unstable even if you can't articulate it. So this is a bicycle with a normal stem and the handlebar sit in
front of the steer tube. And that kind of seems
to make sense right? Your arms are out on the handlebars and this is sort of a stabilizing force. It's leading the bike. But if you really look at the bicycle is that the case? The handlebars are right here and the front wheel is over there. So why is it that the
bicycle feels stable? (upbeat music) So I'm going to explain this with a caster like you would see on the
front of a shopping cart. And you know when you
push the shopping cart the caster always goes so that the steering access is leading and the caster is behind it. If you try to push it like this it automatically flips around. That's just what it does. And so if your steering
axis is behind your wheel it would be unstable. Well no on a bicycle, your steering axis is not
straight up and down like this. It's tilted back. And when it's tilted back not only does the wheel stay stable, but it doesn't even wanna turn. It is self stabilizing. So let's look at steering a different way. Instead of just measuring
straight to the ground, let's look at the steering axis. So your steering axis goes at the same angle as your head tube and you can see where your steering axis
intersects the ground is in front of the tire's contact patch. Contact patches back here the steering access intersects
the ground in front of it. So even though your bars
are behind your wheel, they're actually leading the
wheel on the steering axis. This is called the trail measurement because your front wheel where it makes contact with the ground, it's actually trailing the steering axis. And if it's trailing the steering axis, if it's behind it, you have positive trail. There
are very few bikes if any, that I can think of that
have negative trail. That would be really unstable. Now we go over to this
bike with this stem on it, and well the trail measurement
hasn't changed at all. You still have positive trail. If you look here the steering axis intersects
the ground right here and the tire makes contact
with the ground back here. And so the bike still has positive trail. Putting a big, tall, weird stem on it doesn't really make a
difference whatsoever. And you might say, "Well, no." "That's not why we think it's unstable." Obviously, if nobody's on the bike it's not gonna be affected but you're on the bike
holding onto the handlebars. Your handlebars are usually out here. Now your hands are actually
behind the steering axis, right? Actually, they're not. So what Bronson told me to do
is measure the steering axis from where your hands are. So if we measure it right here and see where it intersects the ground, it's still in front of a contact patch. So even with this big tall stem that's mounted directly
on top of the steer tube your hands are still leading the turn. (country music) So if you stuck with me through that whole steering
geometry discussion you're probably thinking, Great, now I know why
this isn't as unstable as I had originally thought. But so far you've heard no reasons why it should be any better for descending or doing
anything for that matter. And so we'll talk about that now. So first of all bike companies have been
extending reach for a long time. We have to reach further for our handlebars than ever before. That's why I had a custom bike built with the reach measurement that I wanted. On a modern Enduro bike your arms are kind of extended way out and your elbows are locked. With the raised reverse stem you're forced to have your
arms kind of bent up like this. And now not only can you take up a bump, but you can actually push the bike out if the trail dips down. But it's not just the dissent
where you get a benefit. It actually feels really
good when you're cornering. "Wow!" When Bronson told me that, I thought, "That's a stretch. I'm gonna have to see that for myself." But it turns out he seems to be right at least in my test of this stem. In his reasoning for this is he says "It loads your side knobs better." So those little knobs that stick outta the side of your tire, he says it allows you to put your weight down on
those knobs more evenly. But another thing he said is that positioning the handlebars here brings your steering access
closer to the apex of the turn. Now that's true, but why would that give you
better cornering ability? I don't know. But it feels really good. (gentle guitar music) And so if this actually results in gains if this actually makes bikes better, why hasn't any engineer
in the bike industry figured that out yet? Why did this one guy figure it out, put it on his bike, and start winning races? And the answer is not so straightforward. So first of all, if you traveled back in time to 2003 and you showed yourself a modern bike it would look very, very different. But the engineers back
in 2003 were quite good. They were working on
these problems very hard. Yet we have totally different bikes today. And what Bronson is saying is you can't change a bike very quickly if you want to sell it because people are just skeptical of it. They look at it and they say, "Okay, that's insane. Why hasn't anybody done this yet? If it's actually gonna work?" And so bike companies are used to doing very incremental changes so that they ensure they can sell bikes. But over the course of bicycle evolution we've seen some very big changes. And when it can be proven
that they provide a benefit people will eventually sign onto them. And even some of the changes that we have signed onto have drawbacks. There's nothing that you can do to a bike that doesn't have a
benefit and a downside. We could make head tube angles 45 degrees and when you're traveling
down the face of a skyscraper it would ride really, really well, but it would be terrible in
every single other situation. And what I've found is that the raised reverse stem is just pretty bad for climbing. (breath panting) Yeah, I can't really
keep the front end down. (breath panting)
(tires bumping) Yeah, I'm useless climbing on this thing. And maybe not everybody who tests this is going to agree with me on that, but I had a lot of trouble staying stable when I was climbing. Now Bronson told me that he
climbs just fine with it. He doesn't see a downside whatsoever. And he said that any trouble that I'm
having could be attributed to body position. This is such a radical change that in order to see
the full benefits of it you have to eventually
change your body position. And if that sounds ridiculous consider that we've had to
change our body positions on bicycles incrementally over the course of the evolution of the mountain bike. Just think of how you would've
stood on a bike in 1992 and think about your
body position right now. It's a little bit different. Bronson says that - [Bronson] I kind of lean forwards and perch up on the nose of my saddle. It's not as bad but yeah, on tech I have a lot of trouble. - You tell me I'm gonna buy a $400 stem that sticks out like a sore thumb, keeps my bars centered over my
steer tube and my arms bent, and then I have to
change my body position, and then I'm gonna see a benefit? It's pretty hard to get people to sign onto something like that. Now to be clear, when this thing's sitting out on the bench it is an absolutely
beautiful piece of aluminum. But we're used to looking
at our bikes a certain way. We're used to what
bikes look like in 2023. And when this thing is on your bike your bike looks different. But how am I gonna feel when I take this thing off my bike and hit another descent? (tires bumping) (upbeat music) I expected jumping to be
way sketchy and it's not. (tires bumping) It actually feels really good cornering. (tires bumping) Wow. (tires bumping) (upbeat music) Oh (Seth laughs) It's getting new feels. It really does seem to provide benefits when you're descending. And I hope it's in my imagination, like I really really hope. It's in my imagination. I don't want to have to have the stem. (groovy music) And it gets worse. I sent a message to one of my friends that I know is in possession
of the the stem right now, and I said, "Hey I'm really afraid
I might like this thing. I'm really afraid that
it has some benefits." And he texted me back a screenshot of a Strava personal record that he got on a bike he had never ridden before using the stem. (guitar music) And so the raised reversed stem has sort of broken my brain a little bit. It's broken my brain in multiple ways. I mean, how does it feel good? What am I gonna do now that I'm sort of used
to this bike like this when I put my normal stem back on it? And what is gonna come of this? I mean, this really has to prompt an in-depth discussion about geometry. We gotta talk about this. Maybe what we need is something sort of in between this and a normal stem. Or maybe we could do
something even sketchier, a dropper stem. When you're climbing it goes
forwards like a normal stem. And then you press a little button and it comes up like that. That would be super sketchy. And there's also the possibility that I just drank the Kool-Aid and I'm completely wrong and I was just imagining
any supposed benefits. But I really hope you
found this interesting. I hope you'll learn something today. And if you didn't I hope you at least
found this entertaining. And if you want to check
out the raised reverse stem I left a link below because yeah, there's a lot here. Thanks for riding with me today. I'll see you next time. Oh, that's weird. Let's see if this feels as unstable as I think it will. Oh man, just, oh. (tires bumping) Uh?
(tires bumping) Okay, I'm not nearly as sketched out as I thought I was gonna be. (tires bumping) (tires bumping) Okay, this is gonna take a little bit of getting used to but . . . . Ah, what the . . . . (tires bumping) It's actually much easier to
lift up the front of the bike, which should probably come as no surprise. (tires bumping) (breath exhaling) I don't know. (tires bumping) (air exhaling) Okay. Ah, let me think on that.
