Help with sizing the cockpit/suitable bar/stem for my 90s Raleigh...

[TOMAS]

Hi,
I had a similar problem with needing a shorter than standard top tube to get a comfortable reach and bought a frame that, in theory, was way too small for me. I looked at taller stems, such as Nitto (can't remember which one) and this one from Soma - there are others out there but I'm afraid I can't remember them right now.
My solution, as I already had a very nice stem and bars that I wanted to use, was to machine a spacer that pressed into the frame where the headset would, then pressed the headset into that. It may not be to everyone's liking but I'm happy with it - it works well and makes for a very individual build!
CAUTION! This spacer option only works if the forks have a long enough steerer tube to ensure proper engagement with the stem! In your case, you would probably need different forks.
Another option would be a quill stem extender such as this (more searching may find a UK supplier). There are plenty of quill stem extender/adaptors but you'd have to go to Ahead type forks.

As for the bars, like the top of my bar set up pretty flat but prefer the bottom of the drops to be angled so that they're comfortable on the wrists to drop to. If you're interested, these bars are Cinelli Eubios. Having made a bike that finally fits me I also realised that the Cinelli bars had quite a short reach compared to those on my winter hack so recently bought a set of 3TT Forma Anatomica bars that are virtually identical (the open end to the plugs is about an inch shorter).
Persevere - it's worth it!

Thank you for the brilliant feedback! Sadly no scope for the machined extension nor to change the forks with this one.

So I did a bit more playing about today with a different stem 100mm, almost flat, but with the quill adapter suitably raised up... this puts the bar in the right position for me (same postn as first pic I posted). The solution I think will be the Nitto Technomic stem... and then to find suitable bars that are nice and compact with little drop.

 

[pigman]

The deda piega handlebar is fairly compact and has a modern shape and made to fit a 26mm stem clamp. I'm not sure if they do silver nowadays, might be black only

 

[TOMAS]

The deda piega handlebar is fairly compact and has a modern shape and made to fit a 26mm stem clamp. I'm not sure if they do silver nowadays, might be black only

*** EDITED *** Nitto Technomic is 25.4mm clamp so that sadly won't work out

 

[Mike-p]

Randonneur bars come up a little from the clamp so your stem doesn't have to be quite so high. I'd have thought you could get a new frame for the price of the stem and bars but if we were all sensible I suppose we'd be very boring...

 

[TOMAS]

Randonneur bars come up a little from the clamp so your stem doesn't have to be quite so high. I'd have thought you could get a new frame for the price of the stem and bars but if we were all sensible I suppose we'd be very boring...

Thanks for the tip... so by getting a new frame what do you expect I'd achieve? So the current top tube length is fine... a bigger frame will result in more reach, which I don't want, how big a frame would I need to go to obtain an ideal headtube length of approx 16cm - bloody huge I'd expect!

To clarify this frame/bike was custom made/tubeset chosen by Gerald O'Donovan himself for one of Raleighs ex-managers who's my neighbour - he's my height, he gifted me the bike - which has his name stamped in under the paint on both the frame and fork.

The Di2 groupset was also gifted to me by a customer following a horrific high speed crash he had which saw him in hospital for a long time, the carbon frame it was attached to was completely written off but groupset survived, I carried out the conversion/restomod recently whilst I had covid.

I've got a lot of sentiment/back story in this build, which isn't my first retro build, but is my first retro road bike build. I've got a huge personal collection of modern/retro bikes, I know how to size bikes for myself - I just needed a hand sourcing a stem that could place a compact bar where I needed, thanks to helpfull contributions I think i've just about got it sussed now.

Thank you all.