Road Cycling - Handlebars - ergo vs traditional

Which road handlebars do you use/prefer - the ones with an ergo bend or the traditional bend?

If it was good enough for Eddy..................

That is a total preference issue. There are some with more "ergo" than others. The Ritchey bars have a pretty aggressive ergo curve that is really very comfortable.
The only traditional bends I like are italian classic style and the deep-drop has really disappeared, not too many made that way anymore.

Well, I will first say that you should test out different things and go with your preference...but I will also say that "improvements" in cycling parts, materials, etc. do tend to be actual improvements or they are off the market in a few years. Ergo bars look to me like they will stand the test of time.

I guess I'm saying that "newer" isn't always better but when "newer" becomes the standard we can probably figure that it is indeed better.

the ergo flat spot in the drops are the first drop that ever really fit my wide hands.

I prefer the 'ergo' bars. They feel more comfortable when I'm on the drops, especially when I'm braking. The traditional bars never felt like they fit my hands.

I thought I saw some manufacture recently advertising a "new" continuous radius drop bar that eliminates the ergo bend. I guess it's true, everything old can eventually be new again.

I've learned to adapt to the ergo bend and have both 3T and Ritchey's variations represented on our road tandems and single bikes.

I have ergo bars on my current commuter bike. They feel better than the traditional style bars. Although I do have to reach quite a bit for the brake levers when I am in the drops. I do have fairly long fingers and it is a stretch for me. That is my only dislike, otherwise they are great.

Originally posted by pokey
If it was good enough for Eddy..................

just because something was "good enough" for someone in the past does not mean it has to be "good enough" for the present

it's a fair point, a musket was good enough for soldiers a couple of hundred years ago, doesn't mean we still use them. Besides which handlebars are very much about ergonomics. I have big hands and I find ergo bars feel a lot more comfortable, although to be fair on ergos I also find that I can only have the drops perfectly angled or the tops perfectly angled not both. I'm sure the traditional bars won't die out, but for me I don't reckon I'll be getting rid of my ergo's any time soon

I also like the Italian classic bend and not the Belgian bend handlebars.

The flat section of the ergo bars fit my hands much better than the traditional curve type bars. The ergo bars spread the pressure across the whole palm of my hand, not just the sides of the hand.

CHEERS.

Mark

I find that my hands slip down the staight section, away from the brakes. With a continuous curve, I can position my hand nearer to the vertical part of the drop, and it stays there.
I prefer the old touring style of drop, with recurved tops, and slightly splayed , small-radius drops. Fortunately 3TTT have re-issued this style as the Morphe, but I still prefer older versions that I find NOS.

Belgian drops are very hard to find now. As for italian classics, the reason they are so popular is that they have the shortest drop. Ergos have a little deeper drop.
I think ergo bars are very comfortable too. Certainly the majority of bars on bikes are ergo but my personal preference is the italian classic drop.

Okay... obviously there is a large gap in my knowlege of the proper nomenclature of handlebars. In my time riding road bikes, I'm only aware of 3 'traditional' bars and the 2 modern 'ergo' and 'aero' bar, but I've never given the traditional ones names like 'Belgian' or 'Italian Classics'.

Can somebody help match the names to the traditional types I've seen:

1. The run-of-the-mill road bar. You know... level top half, round nearly circular curvature, straight ends.

2. The bar with a steep drop, not so circular curvature... hard to describe... almost pear-shaped when view from the side.

3. The bar where the flats are curved slightly upwards and the curves are flared slightly outwards (I think).

Are there even more than I suspect?

italian classic- rounded, no ergo bend. Shallow drop (see Lance's bike or a dozen other pros), deda 215, itm millenium

Belgian- deep drop, rounded bar. See 70's and 80's Cinelli bars

ergo- a flat bend in the drops. See the Ritchey bars, deda Magic, 3ttt Prima199

There are other variations but those are the standard descriptions for the type of bars.

I dont mind either one

Veloci*Rapture wrote as item #3:

"3. The bar where the flats are curved slightly upwards and the curves are flared slightly outwards (I think)."

I believe this style is a "radonneur" style bar. It was developed by the French for touring. The tops are angled up for additonla hand positions. The drops are angled out and give a wider bar.

Schwinn specified this style on quite a number of their models after 1973, especially the World bicycles from Japan. My 1975 Schwinn Voyageur II came with these (alloy 25.4 mm) and they are comforatable. The width (end to end) is 43 mm which is considerably wider than the Nitto Maes type bar on a 1974 Fuji S10-S (38 cm).

Sheldon Brown has a Nitto model on his web site and also a Nitto Maes drop for comparision.

John Hawrylak
Woodstown NJ

I know I have the Cinelli Ram handlebar and I love it. THe main drawback of it is you can not use Areo bars though. But the stragiht part on the drops fits my hands well, and the flat top bar gives you alot of comfortable hand positions.