Originally Posted by
Happy Feet
People arguing about proper set up for drops etc... tend to miss a point. Bicycles are very personal machines. If a person spends more time on the hoods they will want that position maximized. In the drops.. ditto. If they are happy great! Trying to suggest they are wrong because they don't do what another might is misguided at best.
I agree in as far as that individual is concerned. When that individual then turns around and says "you don't need XYZ equipment, it isn't useful" while they themselves are using it wrong... Then I will disagree. Drop bars have many benefits when set up in a certain way. They can obviously be set up in many other ways (including completely upside down as Craigslist shows us) but using many of these "alternative" configurations tends to compromise the intended benefits. While an individual is certainly free to set up their bike as they wish and for their circumstances, don't do that and then tell me how bad it is.
Again, this thread would be far more useful to discus drop bar setup so that the drops are NOT an illusion and all positions on a drop bar are useful.