Originally Posted by
merlinextraligh
True. And there's nothing wrong with a bike with flat bars. However, the OP said he wanted a road bike. For the uses road bikes are designed, properly set up drop bars are clearly superior.
truth.
Originally Posted by
LesterOfPuppets
If you ACTUALLY hook trees with barends then that means you're bashing trees with your brake levers and knuckes when you're not running barends.
Cute, but untrue. Firstly you don't have to bash bark to hook a bar end; underbrush, reeds, and all kinds of other stuff can get hooked and apply enough force to twist the bar, and then you crash. Secondly, when your bars are wider you slow down. This is natural. If you have 18" off each bar, you go full speed through the trees. If you have 1-2" clearance, you slow down.