Originally Posted by
adamrice
My feeling is that flat bars are fine if all you do is short (5 miles or less) rides, like in-town commuting. If you're riding longer distances, you want more hand positions.
$200 isn't a bad deal in terms of bike-store prices., but I agree with big john. You could probably do it cheaper.
you COULD do it cheaper, but here on the verge of 2010, if you are going to have drop bars you really want integrated braking/shifting. 200 sounds like a great price to do that conversion.