Originally Posted by
Cuyuna
Has not been my experience. While I agree that drop bars offer three different hand positions, I have found as I age that two of those three are unusably uncomfortable. The hand position that's left, on the bar (as opposed to hoods or drops) leaves the hands uncomfortably close to each other impairing handling, and that bar space is so limited that it limits hand positions more than any flat bar I've seen.
Already said here a million times, but I think Sheldon's point was that there's no reason that drop bars should not be set higher and farther back--so that the "drops" position has your hands and body in approximately the same place they would be when using comfortably set-up flat bars--and now the drop bar's "tops" hand position can be a place to rest your back, take a drink of water, or whatever. On most bikes, and particularly those with racing frames, this requires a very uncool-looking tall-and-short stem arrangement, but I have my road bike set up this way and no one's laughed at me yet. I think.
Never tried this, but those reversed curves on the sides do actually look like they might offer different positions that would relieve my wimpy old wrists.