Cane Creek EE Silk Stem Review

STOP! before you say “flex stem” I do know about those innovative stems that were about in the late 80s-early 90s and if I had a £ for every time someone mentions them when reading a review or looking at a picture of a modern suspension stem I would have enough cash to buy an original one!

The first thing to say about the Cane creek EEsilk stem is that it is not a substitute for a suspension fork. Stems like this are designed to dampen the vibrations coming off the front wheel of your rigid forked bike. There are a few of these stems on the market today and they are perfect for a gravel bike and allow more comfortable riding over rough ground. They reduce fatigue on your arms, shoulders and neck which means you can ride for longer and recover more quickly to ride the next day.

So how does the EESilk stem handle being on the front of a gravel bike ridden by someone not known for their finesse when riding?

The EEsilk stem is made of aluminium and offers up to 20mm of compliance, I received the 90mm version to test and this comes with a soft, medium and hard elastomer which controls the travel. An Extra firm elastomer is also available. The stem I tested weighs 231g. This stem includes what Cane Creek call the “compliance switch” This lever on the top of the stem allows on the fly change of compliance from soft to firm. Cane Creek offer a cheaper version without this switch.

Changing the elastomer is very easy, just a 4mm Allen key will remove the hard plastic wedge allowing the elastomer to be removed from the bottom of the stem and swapped for one with a different density. Reverse the process to secure the wedge into the stem. The bolt needs to be torqued up to no more than 2Nm though so investing in a quality torque wrench (very useful for all the bolts on your bike anyway) would be a good idea. if you don’t have one maybe visit your local bike shop and ask the mechanic to check it for you.

The EEsilk stem fits just like and ordinary stem so it was easy to fit to my bike, I first used the medium elastomer that came factory fitted and went in search of rough trails. I deliberately didn’t load the bike up with anything that I wouldn’t normally carry to give it a fair comparison against my normal stem. Immediately on fitting though i realised that the top cap computer mount I usually run would stop me being able to move the compliance lever, Cane Creek do sell an out front mount that fits to the face plate of the stem though. An ordinary -fits to bar- out front mount will fit perfectly, so something to consider when buying.

After an hour or so of riding on gravel fireroads and in the woods I really appreciated the amount of damping that the medium elastomer was giving me, it is very wrist and shoulder friendly, however even with the lever set to firm I found it too soft on smooth tarmac. When climbing out of the saddle the stem bobbed a little too much for my liking. I pedaled home and swapped to the hardest elastomer, luckily this is a 5 minute job. No need to remove the stem or bars from the bike, everything can be swapped in situ.

With the firm elastomer in place and the compliance lever set to firm it all but eliminated the bob on smooth surfaces, certainly to the point I stopped noticing it. In the soft lever position the stem obviously didn’t offer up as much compliance as the softer elastomer option but it gave enough to be noticeably more comfortable than a rigid stem. Throughout the test, which was ridden in a period of weather that ranged from 29+ degrees C with 80% humidity to very wet, gritty and muddy single figure temperatures the stem showed no side to side movement or flex and stayed completely silent, no squeaks or creaks. After longer length rides, say over 50 miles I noticed a significant difference in my arms and shoulders compared to my other bike with a standard stem. I even pedalled the same routes one with the EEsilk and one with standard stem with a day in between for recovery to try and give a fair comparison. Using the EESilk stem I didn’t suffer any hand or finger numbness which I had two days before on a standard stem.

If you are in the market for one of these stems, the Cane Creek EESilk stem is a great option to look at, it’s easy elastomer swap out without having to remove handle bars is a great feature while you dial in your preferred setting. This also means it’s easy to increase or decrease the compliance if loading the bike up with luggage for bike packing trips. I had a few messages asking how easy spares and different rated elastomers are to get. The UK Distributor, Extra UK assure me they have good stock of all parts so if you need to change the elastomer to the extra firm one etc it should be easy.

The Cane Creek EESilk stem works silently and efficiently and the ease of fit and adjustability makes it stand out. The compliance lever adds to the versatility allowing you to almost lock the stem out for smooth sections. On rough ground though is where it really shines, saving wrists, shoulders and neck from a battering. The only downside is you soon learn all about Flex-stems from everyone who was around BITD 🙂

more details can be found on the Cane Creek website here

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