Yeah, it's my first time building a bike up from frame, much less a tourer, and I'm concerned about this common position that I keep finding in Google image searches.

I would like to mount my trekking bars with the open end facing away from me. I would do this for two reasons:

The first reason is because I feel like I would utilize the flat bars better if they were further away from me with some sort of mountain bike style grips. I feel like it would strain my shoulders to otherwise set the flat bars so close to my elbows when I expect that I will be sitting in an upright position for long periods of time. I believe that this set up would allow for more arm extension, and relaxed shoulders.

I also really enjoy the idea of riding with the part of the bar that bends inward set closer to the headset. I think that they would be useless for me if they were placed with the inverse configuration where you had to extend and pull up on the bars with your hands gripped at a 45 degree angle facing out, as I think they would wear on your wrists over time.

But what do I know, this is all conjecture because I haven't set anything up yet...

To do this, I think I would have to buy a long enough stem to do this properly, so that I would avoid knee strike (and/or since I haven't cut the steering tube yet, to leave it as long as possible).