Originally Posted by
idiotekniQues
unfortunately for most of us mortals, most of us aren't jacquie phelan. there are exceptions to the rule but for 99.9% of folks, that wouldn't work. god bless the exceptions. it's pretty well known that for control on off road, most folks succeed with other options. or perhaps just every mtb'er is just a misguided soul that you and mijome can re-edumacate. go to the next high-end mtb race and tell all dem fools they have no idea what they are riding or why.
I really don't have a horse in this race. I have four bikes right now: a hybrid with straight MTB bars, a commuter with swept bars (very upright, comfy position), a folding bike with H-bars, and a touring bike with drops. On my touring bike, the bars are slightly higher than the saddle; I'm not "fantasizing about being in the peloton." My position in the drops is more upright than many racers when they're on the tops. I'm just enjoying riding my bike. But if I had to choose just one of them, as a do-it-all bike, it would be the tourer with drop bars.
And I have no interest in telling MTB-ers what to ride or how. Like mijome07, I was simply pointing out that there are significant counterexamples to your claim that riding offroad with drop bars was a surefire recipe for disaster. A better point to make would have been to point to all the cyclocross riders who do very well with drop bars. The OP was asking about a bike that could be used on bike paths, asphalt, and dirt trails, not technical singletrack.