vecnum travel stem.

[morbihan]

Anyone have any first hand experience?
I'm resistant to susp forks, I like the ones I have for cargo options and the ride feel.
Im leery of any susp under the seat that puts your pedal stroke/knees out of whack.
This looks like it could really help with hand and shoulder fatigue on rough surface with no particular downside beyond cost, aesthetics and relocating a junction box.
Im super curios to hear of personal reports.

[Andrew Br]

I have Redshift suspension stems on 2 of my bikes. I'll be buying another when I get a bike fit to determine the optimum length for me on that particular, new, bike.
Apart from weight and cost, I really can't see a downside to them. The difference before/after is immense IME.
I've no experience of the Vecnum stem but I imagine that it will make a similar difference.
It looks like the Vecnum is more sophisticated than the Redshift because of its parallelogram arrangement but I'm not convinced (based on my Redshift experience) that it's worth the extra cost.

FWIW, I've tried one of my Redshift stems on my new Topstone Lefty because it was the only stem that I had that was about, what I imagined, would be the correct length. Since the bike has a (short travel) suspension fork I thought that the suspension in the stem would be either superfluous or OTT, I just wanted to get a feel for that length of stem. I rode the bike quite a bit with the fork locked out but, IMO, it's better with both the suspension stem and the active fork...............
 

[morbihan]

Thanks for the feedback. Interesting to hear that you found it worked well in conjunction with the short travel fork too. Did it feel like twice the benefit?
I think I will bite the bullet and pick up vencum. I like the idea that the bars move up and down on the vertical.
Its damn ugly though and Ill have to remount a junction box, but comfort tops all.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

The Allsop parallelogram stem worked a lot better than the Girvin Flexstem, particularly with drop bars. The different leverage from positioning your hands on different parts of the drops was a pain with a pivoting stem.

[iandusud]

I'm not familiar with this particular suspension stem but BITD I fitted a Girvin Flexstem to my (pre suspension forks) MTB and it made a HUGE difference. I can see the benefits of using such stems with rigid forks when riding poor surfaces.

[morbihan]

I'm not familiar with this particular suspension stem but BITD I fitted a Girvin Flexstem to my (pre suspension forks) MTB and it made a HUGE difference. I can see the benefits of using such stems with rigid forks when riding poor surfaces.

Thanks

[Andrew Br]

Thanks for the feedback. Interesting to hear that you found it worked well in conjunction with the short travel fork too. Did it feel like twice the benefit?

No, not twice the benefit but the stem seems to mask some of the high frequency, tarmac induced vibrations and the fork subdues the bigger hits.
I think the stem does most of the heavy lifting at least on the majority of rides that I've done on the Topstone.
I still don't think I've got the fork dialled in correctly though......

I'm considering the fit on my other new bike (GT Grade). I may opt for a shorter stem and I'll have no reservations about going for another Redshift.