We begin our sorry tale with a rider called Andrew, but to protect his identity we will call him Andy instead.
Andy wanted to ride bikes very fast and be admired by all the riders in the ELSR Doppio group, so he bought a Tarmac SL-7. As normal, the bike came with an uncut steerer tube. Andy very quickly lowered his stem, to 'slam' his bike so he would look like all the Pro Tour riders he saw on TV. But, for some unknown reason he didn't cut his steerer tube. His fellow riders would mock him on his first few rides, thinking he just hadn't got round to it yet.
The truth was, Andy was starting to quite like his uncut steerer tube, all those headset spacers stacked up above the stem. At first he thought he could handle it, he'd get round to cutting it down at some point, but as the weeks, then months passed, it became apparent that something far more serious was occurring, his steerer tube was taking over his life. His son and wife begged him to trim it, just a centimetre, but he wouldn't budge. He liked those headset spacers and no one would take them from him.
Then the fateful day came, when his life would be changed forever. It was parents evening and on arriving at the school his teacher was shocked to see him. It turned out that his son had told the school that his father been killed in a bizarre gardening accident. It also transpired that his wife had corroborated the story. On probing deeper, the uncut steerer tube came out in the conversation. The school acted immediately, social services were called and his son was taken into care. Andy would only be allowed to see him on supervised visits and he wasn't allowed to bring his uncut steerer tube within 500m of his son, nor any school in the county.
Normally, at this stage, Andy would be left to spiral into the abyss, his life collapsing around him all for sake of a few headset spacers. However, a pioneering experimental treatment has been launched and Andy was lucky enough to get a place on the pilot scheme. Professor Head Set, lead clinician of the programme takes over. "At this stage, we would normally only be able to offer a place in an asylum or Dignitas, but a revolutionary breakthrough in soluble headset spacers allows us to try a pioneering treatment to see if we can break the addiction. After so long, cutting the steerer down in one go would almost certainly be fatal, but over a process of months or years, we think we can help these poor individuals so that they can re-integrate into society and at least have some semblance of self respect."
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