I have to shout out here too - this is a very good thread.

EURO is absolutely right when it comes to range of flexibility vs. saddle to bar height ratio. And who here is in a position to second guess what is right for him?

Personally, I took the opposite route. I purposely lowered my bars in order to help with my flexibility - mainly because at the time, I didn't know better. And for me, it worked very well for 2 reasons that aren't right for many people.

First, I'm lucky in that I'm not injury prone - I can push myself down beyond my comfort range and stay there fairly long without hurting my back and shoulders. Second, I made the conscious effort to work to get there and stay there, even when the body didn't really want to.

How stupid is that? Hey, that's why I hang out here - to learn and experiment.

The goal of a great fit is not to maximize comfort OR power. It's to maximize both. Compromise one and everything goes out of whack. What I eventually found by lowering my bars was that, while I could get down there and stay there pain free, I was compromising my power.

So now my smaller frames (55 & 56) are going to new homes, and the bars on my larger frames (57 & 58) are coming back up.

55/Rad