Ok so after riding a few bikes and talking to you guys I think i've determined why my bars feel weird. The bars were at a weird angle and I fixed that thanks to your help and that did make a difference; but it's still not as comfortable as my roubaix.
There are two main reasons I've found. One is the the size. My hands are big and feel way more comfortable on an oversized bar, If I remember right my big bars also have some kind of gel pads under them as well. The second are the hoods; those stock hoods are too small and just generally not shaped well. My road bike has Ultegra sl brifters, It was my first road bike so I'd never noticed how comfortable those things were until I tried different bikes. The brifters are shaped much more ergonomically, much bigger and covered with a nice soft rubber; the stock LHT brake levers are extremely small and just a hard plastic shell. a final but not as important reason is in fact the width. I rode some other bikes and the most comfortable bars were all close about the same size as my road bike.
So I know I need to switch to an oversized wider bar (probably midge or just an ergo) or double wrap the tape or something but that won't help how those crappy hoods feel. I spend a lot of time on the hoods so it's really the most important change I need to make.
The drops aren't really that bad but I do prefer the ergo bars I rode. I'm out of shape though and find I rarely use the drops. I'm thinking of going with the on one midge bar so I can use the drops for hand changes.
As a final note the rest of the bike is crazy comfortable and I love it, if I can just fix this I'll be set.
I have a few questions:
1. is there a way to make my cheap stock hoods feel like my expensive brifters that isn't too expensive or can anyone suggest what to buy if I need to change them out (I know nothing about hoods)?
2. what is the correct way to measure bar width? Center to center of the drops?
3. Is there a DIY way to add a some kind of gel material under the bar tape?
4. Should I consider just double wrapping the bars for a similar effect.
Here are some pictures of my hoods. The LHT is Tektro, R200A The purple Roubaix is Ultegra.
LHT
Roubaix
