How to easily & perfectly align your Stem

I don't know about your but I've always had trouble aligning my stem perfectly parallel to my front wheel. It's even more infuriating when out on the road or tail sensing even the tiniest misalignment which niggles you for weeks or even months.

The trouble is that it's really hard to quantify if it is actually out of kilter or just in your head! In the past I've tried many whacky solutions of either triangulating a measurement between the grips and a point on the tyre or using a straight edge between the saddle headset and tyre.

There are two issues at play here, the margin of error that you can detect is so small that it's virtually impossible to measure accurately. You also can't make tiny adjustments to the stem as you have to nip up the bolts a little to stop it moving whilst trying to align it and it's pretty grippy so it takes quite a nudge to move it meaning you pretty much have to fluke it with a bit of trial and error.

Well it turns out that it's actually very easy when you know how and it doesn't even need any tools other than your eyes!

Just drop out your front wheel and eyeball the angle of your axle dropouts with the stem faceplate.

Easy. Only issues you might have is if you've got a chunky front mudguard and you'll come up against not being how to focus on both your dropouts and faceplate at the same time but the effect is no worse than you can see from my photos but it is super quick to get dialled in. Should work with any bike and you can get the alignment perfect!