Originally Posted by mihlbach

You are still assuming that all climbing is the same. There are variations in the length of the climb, steepness, desired speed, etc. Yes, the hoods will put you higher than the drops, but the flats will put you even higher. Flats work fine for sustained climbs. The hoods are really great for standing because you can swing you bike side to side, but you can get a similar position without hoods by holding onto the bends for short bursts out of the saddle. And there are times when climbing in the drops is better...even assuming a normal bar position. If I really want to blast up a short hill without loosing speed, I stay in the drops and hammer up. Of course I can't sustain that for long climbs but it works awesome for small hills. But thats the beauty of road drops with a reasonably angled stem...options.