Originally Posted by AnthonyG

You deffinitely don't need to buy the short reach STI levers. All they are is the normal levers with the shims already in place. Seriously.

I have some simply because they were up for sale on eBay in an almost new condition (removed from a new bike without use) for a good price and they just have the shim already in place.

Being short myself with small hands I can personaly reccomend Modolo Venus bars, http://www.modolo.com/ Very good for small hands and something I reccomend you avoid is so called ERGO bars. Honestly there's nothing ergonomic about ERGO handlebars but ironicaly its MODOLO who introduced ergo bars actualy. I have a pair of the Venus bars and they work a treat. Short reach, tight bend on top for maximum handlebar width on the tops and comfortable drops that have a slight curve in them but not the horrid ERGO bend.

The other good handlebar option to look for is a small set of classic curve handlebars. You know, the old fashioned type. Much more comfortable for most people, paticuarly if you have small hands.

Ritchey has some classic bend bars as does Oval-Concepts. Harris cycles, http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/handlebars/index.html has some classic Nitto handlebars for sale.

EDIT NO 2. OK as a clarification some of you may know that I have my bikes set up with butterfly/trekking bars. Well I'm in the proccess of changing to drop bars and I realy had to sort it out properly or it wouldn't work for me. The short reach STI's came on a set of womens specific, 38 cm wide ERGO handlebars. I tried them as they were and they just didn't work at all. I unwrapped them, moved the levers and tried again but still no good. If I set the ergo's up for the top and the hoods the drops were crap and vice a versa. I had a 25 year old pair of classic 38 cm bars so I thought why not give them a go. MUCH better but still not perfect because even though they were narrow they still had a drop of 140 mm and a reach of 100 mm which is the same as larger bars. Also 25 years old is a bit much so I wanted newer bars. I was looking for small classics and I found the Nitto's, Oval-Concepts, Ritchey and Deda make some reasonable small classic bars with a shallow drop. Some of them are hard to get and some are expensive and then I remembered the Modolo Venus's. There not that expensive and I'm realy liking them so far.

Regards, Anthony