Originally Posted by
obed7
specialized and trek already make a carbon bike with flat bars on it...
the trek fx7.7 is the domane 4 series frame with a flat bar on it.
I forget what spec calls theirs... sirrus or something like that.
They would both be less than buying a road bike and converting to flat bars, the advantage to buying a road bike and changing to flat bars is that you would have the stuff to put it back if you did not think the flat bar thing was working for you.
I'm in Maui right now and I rented a Specialized Sirrus Sport, because it cost half as much to rent as a Specialized Tarmac. I'm pleasntly surprised how responsive the Sirrus is, despite being a flat bar bike with 32mm tires. It's MUCH closer in performance to my drop-bar road bikes that use 23-25mm tires than I ever would have expected. My understanding is that this bike shares the same geometry as the Specialized Roubaix.
The only downside I can see is that this bike has an aluminum fork, and that, combined with the flat bar position is making my hands get tingly starting to numb during rides of more than an hour.