I thought that this fork would be too stiff also. The set of wheels I have been using with it though are especially comfortable and may be masking the stiffness. Eventually, I will probably replace it with a reasonably good carbon fork. The only carbon fork laying around my shop (the PZ Racing) has produced some "strange" feelings on the road.

As to the drop bars.............I've sort of become neutral about those, not really pro or con.

I'll try to add some more pictures of the fork this weekend. It's a full airfoil TT bladed fork and is no way "flimsy"

Edit: I'm not sure why the wheels feel so good, but they are a little different from the norm. The front wheel is a wide stance (all spokes heads in for the max width base of the spoke triangle at the hub) radial build. They are built at very high tension (higher than the rim manufacturer recomends) that I probably would not want to sell. The rims are a rigid deep v section and spoke washers are used under the head of the spoke at the hub to take out any remaining tolerance. The rear is a half radial (non drive side) and 3 cross drive side. Most performance wheels built to this sort of spec are the newer reduced spoke count wheels but these are 32 spoke. This is a Maddmaxx research special that seems to work well. So far, they have disproven the idea that radial wheels are "harsh"