Originally Posted by
Baby Puke
I've heard legends of 15cm stems, but never actually seen one in the wild. Part of the problem is that modern bars have really short reach compared to old-school sprint bars, which have way too much drop for kids these days. A good compromise, if you can find one, is the 33cm Alpina bar. Not too much drop, but generous reach. I have wanted one for many years now. Also tilting your bars up effectively lengthens the reach. The bottom of my drops are probably at around 7˚ or so for that reason.
There is a "long stem" movement that seems to be present in some track cycling circles (Velobike comes to mind) with some offerings from 150mm to 200mm, stem lengths. I think that is extreme, but for someone who (a) doesn't want to (or can't) change bars; (b) TT length (effectively frame size); or (c) only wants to drop $50.00 on a used stem and see how that goes...I think going a tad longer in the stem department is a reasonable option.
