Is stem length IRRELEVANT in triathlon?

Hi everyone, Nick from TriRig here. Just a quick video today to help address a common question. We make a product line called Sigma – it’s our line of stems. We’ve been making them for over ten years, and the latest iteration is called Sigma One. It takes the super simple and robust adjustment design from our award-winning Alpha One aerobar, and ports it to a stem, where it can be used on gravel, road, or any standard steerer tube.

But a question we get all the time is … do you have a different length for it? Do you have a 90mm? or a 110mm? I just got my bike fit and I need a 105.2mm stem, can you make that?

So, why don’t we have a 90mm or a 110mm version of the stem? Well, the reason is our ecosystem of cups, like the TriRig Signature closed-black Scoops. You’ll see they’ve got 80mm of fore-aft adjustment range to put the cup exactly where you want it. For triathlon positions, it doesn’t really matter what the nominal stem length is, it matters where your body is. The steering will be exactly the same whether you have an 100mm stem with your cups in the middle of their fore-aft position, compared to a 80mm stem with the cups set forward by one position. No difference at all.

The one difference stem length does have is how far out your handlebar sits from the steerer tube. So for a road position, stem length becomes a little more critical, but remember that there is a vast selection of base bars of varying reach you can choose from, so the stem is only one part of your reach in that respect.

What Sigma One does is give you the industry’s best aerobar setup and allows you to put it on any bike or frame you want, with just two bolts. From there, you can hit just about any position you want, whether it’s a traditional fit that just needs a little cup and extension adjustment, or whether you want to go wild with our Wingspan extenders, Angled Spacers, or more, it’s all plug and play, and all available in the TriRig store.