Review: The Redshift Sports ShockStop stem.

I saw this product on Kickstarter a few months ago so when road.cc reviewed it recently, I knew my wallet was in for an imminent kicking. And here it is! It's basically a stem suspended at the steerer end on two cartridge bearings with the centre of the stem housing a pair of elastomers trapped inside with a wedge assembly. The net result is 10-20 mm of shock and buzz reducing travel with no loss of stiffness and a weight penalty of only around 100 grams over a normal stem. I removed the Cinelli Vai stem I had on Awesom-O and prepared to fit the new stem. The elastomers are fitted at the factory so the stem points upwards in the +6° position so this is how I decided to fit it figuring the stem would lower to a more conventional position when it activated and moved downwards. The bike looked a bit odd this way and felt too upright so I decided to swap it to the -6° position.

To do this, you remove the face plate, undo a long bolt that runs through the elastomer wedge and simply remove the elastomers and wedge assembly and refit it the other way up. The manual was very specific about not mis-threading the wedge retaining bolt and advises keeping the bolt head as low as you can and pushing down on the stem to align it optimally. I had no issues with this and the bolt screwed back in with no issues. I tightened this bolt to the recommended 1.5 ft/lbs and reassembled the bike. The faceplate and steerer clamp bolts were all done up to the recommended 5 ft/lbs and the job was a good'un. I haven't ridden it properly yet but I did do a few ups and downs of my rear drive way and I'm certainly intrigued. I'm not sure how it will reduce road buzz but it really removes the jarring you get when you go through a small dip and the bars really punch up into your wrists. I'll take it for a full ride over the weekend and finish this review.

Update and final opinion: We've had some fairly severe winds over the last few days but it's calmed down a bit so I managed to get out last night and test the stem with the 60/70 elastomer combination recommended by Redshift. I was initially going to do the usual but I actually ended up doing the most varied ride I've done for ages. It was a mixture of cycling through woods in the dark, the Old Coach Road which is horrendous, peeling chip seal, the undulations of the farm track and the road to Holt Green which is pretty rough in places. Partly because it was dark and partly because it was so windy, I didn't really notice the stem. I just realised occasionally that while I could feel the imperfections of the road slamming up through the saddle, my hands and wrists were taking virtually no abuse at all. I think this is the beauty of this stem, it does it's job unobtrusively until you get home after a hard ride and realise your hands and wrists don't feel like you've been out on a ride at all. I think if you have any kind of hand, wrist or shoulder ailment, you'd be absolutely mad not to fit one of these as soon as you can. It did feel a little soft just occasionally when hitting larger obstructions so I'd love to try it with 70/70 elastomers but for now? Top product.


The RRP for this product in the UK is £149.99 but I got mine from KIT RADAR who are selling them for £139.99.