Originally Posted by
fuzz2050
There are probably hundreds of threads buried deep within this forum about drop bar conversions, and usually the answer is it simply isn't worth the money. If it's more hand positions you're after, a trekking bar is a good alternative. It would allow you to reuse your current brake levers and shifters, but give you several more hand positions. If you still want a drop bar, know it's going to be a project.
Depends, of course.
While shopping around for shifters, stem and bars to convert my flat-bar Bianchi Valle to drop bars, I noticed that the price difference between my Valle and a Volpe ('cross bike, same frame, drops, but no dynohub) was basically the same as the cost of the conversion. A scenario, then, involving selling the Valle, buying a Volpe, and adding a dynohub n' lights would have been more expensive than just doing the conversion.
That's just staying with one manufacturer, though. Anything's possible.
I tried trekking bars for a few weeks but didn't like them enough to keep them. I didn't change the length of the stem to experiment further. They didn't give the low position that I get on my road bike, the straight-horizontal "flats" where the shifters sat (I set mine up the same way as irclean's) weren't as comfy as the Valle's stock bars' moderate sweep, and I just don't like the wide-arm grip when holding the sides (which is a LOT wider than almost all drop bars).
I'm still planning to do the conversion, but it's been on the back burner since I've been having fun with the new road bike I built up.