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10-21-11 | 08:26 AM

#16

bud16415

Senior Member

Joined: Jul 2011

Posts: 1,141

Likes: 5

From: Erie Penna.

I would never say varying hand positions is "bunk" for me. It is a very individual thing for sure and I would suggest everyone figure that out for themselves. I have a friend that every road bike he has, the very first thing he does is put dead straight bars on it. I asked him why he liked them so much and he said he grew up with straight bars and anything other than straight doesn’t look right to him. I excepted that as a reason to have them for him. He's a strong guy and his idea of a long ride is a couple hours max. most being about a half hour. I always wanted to go on a 8 hour ride time day with him to see if his opinion would change.

I posted photos above with my percentages listed and that might not be fair looking back on it because I have other bikes I ride for other reasons and I would give a different answer. The OP asked about Drops, Hoods and Tops so I answered about my touring bike I have drop bars on. I also ride a Cannondale road bike that came with drop bars and Sora shifters and I hated the ride position on that and radically changed that up to this bull horn DIY setup.
Hoods 50% Bump 2" behind hood 50%

Once again I wouldn’t recommend this for anyone else but for me, it's good. and the slight change in hand position moves the pressure point from the pad of the thumb to the pad of the palm. I hardly ever grip the straight of the bar on this bike and if I wrap it again I won't go all the way across to the center. The main reason I did this on this bike was the Sora push button shift if it has STI that could be shifted from the drops I would have set it up more like the other bike I think. This type setup though for up to a couple hours is really fun. It's much quicker and sporty feeling and suits this bike and me. Many have told me they would hate this style also.

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