Originally Posted by
Talldog
Really, the difference is neglible unless you are averaging 20mph or more already. Then the pure road racer would pay bigger dividends. Otherwise there is a large placebo effect methinks.
There is a significant difference enough to where noticing it and preferring one or the other isn't a placebo. If you upgrade some part of your bike and lose 100 grams, noticing a significant difference is probably a placebo. But flatbars, even with bar ends, are not the same as drop bars.
If it is just hand position that is the problem there are other options. To me the drop bar thing about long range comfort is just a myth. They were designed for racing after all, not comfort.
What makes them comfortable is having a lot of places to put your hands. I haven't looked for pics of your bike, Talldog, but I would bet money you have bar ends. Plain flat bars cause hand fatigue because you can only grip them normally, or very shallow with your fingertips and then you can't shift or apply the brakes.
However, if you don't have much weight on your hands due to supporting yourself primarily with your core, that will definitely help both (more correctly, ALL) bar types reduce hand and wrist fatigue.
Flexibility matters a lot. I cannot and will not get into the crazy positions that pro road racers do, seat 8+ inches above their bars. More reasonable for average riders is around 2-3" drop. Some folks ride road bikes with bars even or above their seat, and some flatbar road bikes are much lower. Bar alone doesn't make the positioning, of course!
I've got both and prefer the flat bars. Everybody is different though. Best to borrow one and try it before you drop a lot of coin.
Very smart advice. Borrow a friend's bike that is approximately the right size (no more than 1 size small), or rent one from a LBS.
My hybrid is still very useful to me because I bought one that is nearly a hardtail MTB, with a very good suspension fork. Before getting a road bike, I was very concerned about maintaining a balance between on and off-road tire performance. Now I have very aggressive 35mm cyclocross knobbies on it, and they're terrible on the road but they're quite good on technical singletrack. I only ride that bike on the road if I'm doing a short ride (under 15 miles) with friends & family who have hybrids or MTBs, and they ride slowly between 10 and 15 mph.
There is absolutely no contest between my road bike and hybrid on the street, even when I had street-biased tires. (Caveat: I never ran 25mm true road tires on my hybrid.) It's significantly lighter, more hand positions, shifts better*, and I have many logged rides where I can prove that for the same perceived rate of effort on the same path I was going faster on a road bike. My hands and wrists feel better because I have a lot more hand positions and I switch them every few minutes. I ride in the drops going into the wind or downhill-- I actually use everything the bars have to offer.
Anyway, none what I've written should be controversial. We're all here because we love bikes and want to discuss them and learn from each other. Pick the best bike for you, your budget, and your riding conditions! Better yet, have several bikes that are optimized for different types of riding.
*Footnote: my hybrid has Shimano Deore drivetrain and it isn't nearly as smooth operating as my road bike's SRAM Rival. However, my wife's hybrid now has full SRAM X9 and it is
really good. So, no, road drivetrain isn't always better than MTB. And some hybrids do have road drivetrains.