Originally Posted by roadwarrior

My point is that self fitters (who, with all due respect really do not know what they are doing) set the bike up for looks, not performance. They generally do not ride down in the drops much, mostly sitting up with their hands on the hoods with straight arms. This is especially true in the US because few people get any instruction on how to correctly ride a bike. So they ride with locked elbows and straight arms when they should be riding with soft arms and hands just enough to control the bike (for example, can you ride for long periods of time with your hands on top of the hoods with your forearms parallel to the ground, a great aero position? Most cannot). They can't do that due to fit...bars are way too low given their flexibility and fitness. But they look really good riding bikes set up like a pro. Looks are a lot more important than performance.

I could go on but there's no point...other than to mention when I was racing overseas we used to do a drill where, riding in a pack, hit riders on the arms...if you are riding with too strong a grip, down you go. What they called the "US Grip"...death grip on the hoods, straight locked arms/elbows...every day we send riders out with properly fitted bikes where they can sit properly and ride faster.

Personally, I like the bars higher because I like to climb the short steep stuff from the drops rather than standing as it's faster. There are several top notch riders who liked less drop, one being Marco Pantani.