Originally Posted by jcm
Earlier today, I wrote about some frustration about how the pics and catalog descriptions of the various and sundry handlebars are presented. It's hard to actually visualize alot of what is being sold to us. here are a couple sketches that might help because they show the angles in terms of "sweep". Be aware that these are only representations of the roughest sort, and only compare the angles in a very loose sense. but, hopefully, you'll get the general idea. The actual numbers are probably quite different, but this is how the various bars look in comparison to each other.
Mary, or All-Rounders vs. North Road
http://i18.tinypic.com/2cg22l0.jpg
North Road vs. Albatross vs. Priest (which are basically identical to Promenade)
http://i17.tinypic.com/42xo9r5.jpg
Good job on the illustrations. This would have been useful when I was trying to decide on albatross bars or north road bars last year.
As I wrote in this thread, I've been struggling to get comfortable on ANY handlebar. I'm a good candidate for a recumbent, but it isn't a practicle solution for my needs right now. Anyways, I put trekking bars back on the bike and while they offer a lot of hand positions I found I needed to use those positions to keep my hands from falling asleep. So I put the north road bars back on and switched to a zero setback seatpost which pushed me forward and and even more upright than before. I still have enough of a bend in my spine that I don't get back pain (which happens if I'm bolt upright), and the shoulder/fore arm pain I was having previously with the north bars was not an issue. I still have some wrist discomfort, but it's much better than before.