Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
Hi @BluesDawg,
Nice to see a post by you; haven’t in a while. Your current one summarizes IMO, the thread, and generalizes my situation.
For the past few years I have been entirely satisfied with my carbon fiber road bike, aluminum road bike as a beater that accepts 30C studded tires, and a previous moumtain bike beater, now in storage.This year however has been a bust because this winter I developed a weakness in my neck muscles supporting my head upright (perhaps due to a two month unavoidable layoff) on my previously well-fitted bikes.
I had a subsequent fitting on both, with some handlebar adjustments. I recently got an exercise consultation for neck, shoulder and core muscles, and was given an exercise routine, that takes a big chunk of 50 minutes to perform. Exercise may fix it, but that’s a long-term solution.
All these remedies have barely allow me to ride my minimum 14 mile one-way commute with slight discomfort near the end. By this time of the year I'm doing weekly 50-60 mile rides easily, and even training for a Century. Just yesterday, I rented a hybrid style bike with flat handlebars, and was comfortable on the commute, even with a moderately heavy backpack
So now I’m giving in to the idea of a flat bar bike. I’m in a quandary if I should replace the drop bars on my aluminum beater (with endurance style geometry) with flat bars, see if I can buy this relatively cheap hybrid since it seems to work, or buy a new quality hybrid to my specifications. The Diverge is already set up as a nice all-weather commuter (see photo). I’m going to my trusted LBS on Saturday to make a decision.
Hi, Jim. In my experience, flat bar bikes have no inherent advantage over drop bar bike regarding bar height. Either has to be set up so that the bars are where you are comfortable. Because of my inflexible neck, much of my decision process in choosing a frame is focused on making sure the stack and reach will allow me to set up the bike comfortably without going too extreme on spacers and stem angle.