khutch

Perhaps, I just find it really hard to believe that rather small geometry changes make the difference between can't get up the hill at all and go right up it without breaking a sweat! Go on a fifty mile ride with 10k feet of climbing and tell me that you feel much better doing that on bike A than bike B, yeah I will believe that. If some other person then tells me on the same ride bike B works better for her, yeah I believe that too, we are all different. As an example while my Fuji hybrid is very nearly a road bike and climbs very well, thank you, I switched from flat bars to (now) swept back Jones bars and unlike the experience of another poster above I find that the swept back geometry climbs exceedingly well, it gives me great control on soft surfaces, and I think I have enough road miles on it now to say that it works as well as drop bars for me while riding on the road. The first two are to be expected, Jones is an MTBer after all, the last is just a happy accident.

Hybrids don't climb poorly, one may climb better for you than another though. I am sure you could make the same statement for road and any other type of bike.

Ken