Originally Posted by
RustyJames
I’ll throw a fly into the ointment.
40 years ago drop bars were part of the experience but knees, back, etc may not be as limber as they once were. As suggested, try bikes out but don’t disregard a more upright riding position.
It's even more important for those of us who started out with relatively long legs and have done some aging since.
As an example, today I began work on a decent full-suspension bike that I sourced at Goodwill. The frame seems the right 18" or Medium size, but in the old style, the "drop" from saddle to the bars was over 4" using a necessarily-long seatpost for my odd proportions. And on this one, the steer tube was cut clean "slammed" at only the height of the top of the threadless stem, ugghh.
Luckily I had a 130X35-degree Ahead-stem to fit on it so I won't have to ride it all "stink-bug".