Originally Posted by
Loose Chain
The problem (one of several) with taking a bike designed for flat bars and putting drop bars on it is that the effective top tube length is often different. Bikes designed for drop bars are likely to have a shorter top tube in a given frame size range.
Depends. The Bianchi Valle that I have is a flat bar bike, and their Volpe is a drop bar/cyclocross bike. Both are listed as having the exact same frame geometries; I'll bet that they're the same frames, just with different paint. Once I found this out, I decided that it would be even easier to convert my Valle to drops.
*add-on* I've got stems to spare, and can probably get others from my LBS if none of mine are the right length.