I did a 38 mile ride yesterday on a Trek 2.1 with a backpack. A *very* lightly loaded backpack. I would much rather have not brought it though.

Anyway... I commuted on a MTB last year, and decided to buy a road bike this year. My commute is about 12 miles each way. I just hate using flat bars that far. If I didn't care about speed it probably wouldn't matter - on every downhill, or fast flat area, or headwind, I wished so bad that I had drop bars. I have a couple climbs as well in the area of 400' of climb over a mile or so, so I wanted something light for the way up and fast on the way down. I don't want to carry much in either a backpack or rack. I bring clothes to work on Monday in my car and only bring a couple of odds and ends in a backpack, which I'll probably pare down enough to the point where i don't need the backpack either.

If I really wanted to use a rack though, I would definitely pick a different bike. However, I'd pick a road bike with drop bars that was just more designed for commuting. But that's just me - if that were the "best" bike then I wouldn't see hordes of people on hybrids and MTB with flat bars commuting around here. And if that were the "best" bike, then I wouldn't also see hordes of people on road bikes with drop bars commuting as well.

One thing about flat bars - they put your wrists in one extreme end of their rotation. With your arms to your sides, lift your forearms parallel to the ground and rotate your wrists in as far as you can - that's close to where you are on flat bars. Rotate them the other way and you'll see you get about 180 degrees of rotation. Right in the middle, the "neutral" area, is where you'll be on bar ends or on the hoods of drop bars. My wrists/forearms would get sore on flat bars and I really wished I had bar ends. I would actually just hold the handlebars and the ends with my palms facing in for a bit to relieve the tension.