Originally Posted by
Mr. Underbridge
I'm not a drop zealot. However, I can't understand people who say they always ride on the hoods. If you're going to do that, why have a drop bar, and brifters that are ill-designed for how you ride? Adapt your equipment to how you want to ride, not the other way around.
I generally feel the same way. I always ride in the drops, and have a fairly large saddle to bar drop. I've NEVER been comfortable trying to ride in the hoods.
Until recently when I bought a new (to me) bike. The bike came with bars lower than I normally ride and a slightly longer stem. In that position I could actually see myself riding in the hoods. I ended up just flipping the stem and going back to the drops, but the point was, I finally saw the hoods as a viable option. I think the k-force bars and campy hoods had something to do with that as well though.
Again though, it comes back to determining how you want to position your hands, and adjusting around that.
In the heavy traffic of my commute though, I'm not sure I'd ever trust my ability to get on the brakes hard enough from the hoods.