Originally Posted by
Spoonrobot
Incorrect, on multiple points. Having a firm grip on the hoods requires hand re-positioning before braking. Having a firm grip on the drops does not. Drops are always more secure than hoods. You get three fingers and a thumb around the bar with one finger on the brake. With hoods, unless you have very narrower fingers you get two and a half fingers and half a thumb around the shifter body but no fingers on the brake lever. The handhold provided by the drops is also more secure and fits the hand better than the bar/shifter interface.
I'd like to see your bike - are we talking cyclocross style upwards angle or hobo-bum-bike upward angle?
Great. I appreciate when someone talks about their opinion and not whether mine are valid. I will assume you mean the bolded part and not the jab at another poster. If so, no one, at least not me, has argued against that. Only that the hoods also offer a good degree of safety as well. I would call it a matter of degree.
It is really hard to argue against the fact that most people nowadays are riding and braking from the hoods and that it has not been highlighted as a causal factor in crashes to the degree that the industry is talking about changing behavior. Nor that manufacturers seem to be going forward, not backwards in designing braking systems for hoods. No one is talking about modern hood use as being particularly dangerous.