I believe it is fair to say that proper pista drops are not particularly comfortable. Riding brakeless, you cannot exactly ride the hoods like you can on a nice ergo road drop. Face it-- proper track drops are designed for riding in the drops.
I like some variety--- have mustache bars on one of my fixed gears. Those babies are wide. With all the hills, I prefer bullhorns. They provide a similar position to riding the hoods on my road bike. I have one bike with flat bars, and they pinch a nerve in my wrists on long rides.
Originally Posted by
wearyourtruth
well i suppose to be fair, there is a difference between why people use flat bars, and what are the advantages of running a flat bar.
i think people run flat bars because
a) they are dirt cheap
b) brake levers for them are dirt cheap
c) they are more comfortable (mentally) since most of us grew up on flat bars of some sort, not drops
d) because of wheelies and bar spinzzzzzz, they are in fashion
d is probably the most important one. i haven't been around forever, but i've seen trends come and go. there was a time we were having these exact same discussions, but instead of talking about impractical risers cut too short, we were talking about impractical track drops on super-dropped stems, along those lines were discussions of impractical gear ratios (track ratio on the street). the reason people ran those setups? because that's what was cool to run. you had deep v's, a 52 front chainring, and the deepest, most polished drops you could find. now you have one aerospoke, an anodized crank and risers narrower than your shoulders.
i think it's just part of human nature, really. when someone thinks "hey i think i'd like to try that out" they go look at what everyone else is doing and then emulate it. i'm sure flatbars/risers will fade out.