Item # ZIP000A

Zipp SL Sprint Carbon Stem $265.00
Reviews & Community
REVIEWS
Major Upgrade
- Familiarity: I've put it through the wringer
This stem is a major upgrade to any bike. Although I've bought more than my share of items here, I actually acquired this stem on a used bike I purchased a year or so ago. I never liked the look of the stem and didn't really care to have a carbon stem anyway. After considering selling the stem, I put it on my old gravel bike and really liked it. Then I moved it to a few other bikes and continued to be blow away by the improvement in stiffness, ride feel, and dampening on rough terrain.
Recently I did a few side by side rides on my road bike going back and from my usual Service Course SL and this stem. Both are great, but the way in which the SL Sprint smooths things out on anything from rough pavement, to pave, to gnarlier gravel is really amazing.
Great product.
Do you have this in the matte finish?
Stiff, light and sleek!
- Familiarity: I've put it through the wringer
One of my favorite stems; has made its way onto my last 3 road bikes. I always try for an aluminum stem that might give me a slightly better position, but everything else pales in comparison in terms of stiffness to the SL Sprint. Add to that, the fact that this is the only carbon stem with an angle greater than 6 degrees and you have a winner if you like an aggressive position.

stiff, light, awesome
- Familiarity: I've used it several times
This stem is super sexy, stiff, and light. Love this thing.

Very pro-looking stem
- Familiarity: I've put it through the wringer
I really like this stem and I use it with my Vuka Sprint aero road bars--a perfect match that really makes the bike's cockpit look formidable, even beautiful. I've no complaints at all with the performance, though I'm not enough of a connoisseur of stems to distinguish unacceptable levels of flex or vibration. So far as I can tell, everything stays exactly where it should and I have no problem sprinting hard.
If there's one criticism that I have, it's the fact that it is extremely difficult to mount a computer on it. No big deal if you have regular road bars, but the airfoil shaped Vuka Sprint bars offer no clean place to mount a computer either so I've had to buy water filter o-rings and superglue them onto the computer's mount to keep everything in place over the top of the stem; however, I hate the positioning because it undoubtedly destroys the aero advantage of the bars. 3T has a similar stem offering that has the ability to have an integrated mount in the faceplate, and I hope that Zipp eventually designs a similar accessory.
Great new design
- Familiarity: I've used it once or twice and have initial impressions
Zipp moved the threads from the face plate to the stem this year. This simple change made this stem 1000x better. Last years stem was so hard to torch down you would most likely strip the bolts. Zipp makes a great product and obviously they've learned something and made steps to correct flaws.
Thanks for your review! Really good breakdown.