Exactly. I have three very usable positions. The grips for full upright scenic turtle pace, The hooks are 100mms in front of the grips for buzzing along at a quicker pace and out of the saddle climbing, and the flats by the stem for headwinds. The flats are actually quite a bit lower than the saddle, so it's a pretty versatile.


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Has not been my experience. While I agree that drop bars offer three different hand positions, I have found as I age that two of those three are unusably uncomfortable. The hand position that's left, on the bar (as opposed to hoods or drops) leaves the hands uncomfortably close to each other impairing handling, and that bar space is so limited that it limits hand positions more than any flat bar I've seen.

Are those Boscos?

The only issue I have with the OPs first post is the "almost 30" and feelings old part. Why do most bikers think that is old especially? Just the fact that we can even ride bikes means almost by default we're healthier and more limber than most in whatever our age groups may be. I'm currently 30 and if I can stay immature for 20 more years then people will consider me "youthful".

I don't feel old at all. I never said that, either. I can run a 6 minute mile, I rode 103 miles on drop bars on Sunday, and I work 12-20 hours a week using hand tools restoring wetland habitat. I've never felt better! I said my tastes are changing and I am beginning to find comfort more important than sheer athleticism, and am wondering about how others have handled their own changing attitudes.

-Gregory

(Edit - I've also suffered from chronic back issues since childhood and sometimes find myself extra fatigued by discomfort on longer rides, and was pleasantly surprised by the change of scenery when I went to the upright handlebars. It prompted the thoughts that led to my original post.)

I can understand that. I actually have cruiser bars flipped upside down to give me the leverage sprinting and climbing with a lower angle then I can sit up somewhat straighter with my wrists at a comfortable angle. I'd post pics but I don't want to set up a photo bucket right now.

Yep, Stem shifters. Wanted to stay with the Suntour Accushift 6 speed setup from the factory. It was sort of the evolution of stem shifters, so to speak. :)

Switched my old Bridgestone over to a riser bar when i added the tag-a-long, the old 38cm drops just didn't have the leverage for low-speed handling with the rig and herself on board.
I'm an old XC guy, so straight bars are no big deal to me. It's nice having bar with just grips and brake levers on it; a refreshing change from the 'full battle rattle' of my commuter and the techy cockpit on my road bike.

Also been looking at changing up the bars on the road bike, too. I'm taking a look at gravel-style bars, with the shallow, flared drops and canted levers; they seem like they'd fit the way my hands and wrists want to line up on the bars than a conventional drop bar.

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Nope. Better. ;)

Husky Industrial Bicycles part number 351-200. Steel. Not heavy, like Wald bars. Nice and stiff. In stock trim they are much more swept back and 27 inches wide. I cut them down to position my hands in line with the steering axis, which brings them to 24 inches wide. For me, that's perfect. The finish isn't pretty, but I wrap all my bars anyway.

They just increased the price to a whopping $15.50.

Husky Bicycles: Bicycles

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Already said here a million times, but I think Sheldon's point was that there's no reason that drop bars should not be set higher and farther back--so that the "drops" position has your hands and body in approximately the same place they would be when using comfortably set-up flat bars--and now the drop bar's "tops" hand position can be a place to rest your back, take a drink of water, or whatever. On most bikes, and particularly those with racing frames, this requires a very uncool-looking tall-and-short stem arrangement, but I have my road bike set up this way and no one's laughed at me yet. I think.


Never tried this, but those reversed curves on the sides do actually look like they might offer different positions that would relieve my wimpy old wrists.

Personally, I had the realization that I prefer some kind of alternative bar for touring that is more upright and that drops are silly. My first tour overseas taught me that drop bars for touring is more of a North American thing.

I have a bike with about 2.5" of saddle to bar drop and nitto noodles with a slightly shorter reach for commuting and training and general use, my other bike has modern compact bars and about 5" of saddle to bar drop. Both are comfortable for their intended use. Brifters are a must, old narrow bars and levers do not work for me. I need a nice flat section and a reasonably sized hood to rest on.

Being comfortable is all about taking care of your body. I don't just bike and I do more mountain biking than anything. I also ski, run, hike, swim occasionally, and go through fits and starts with basic core strength exercises and yoga etc... if all I did was road bike I'd be very uncomfortable. Overall fitness is the most significant component of on the bike comfort and the one most people talk about the least. As your fitness changes your bike fit will evolve. The fitter you are the more comfortable you'll be with a longer and lower position.

Thanks for the tip - I'm a fan of the Walds but I'm always ready to try something new.

You are welcome. To be clear, I love Wald handlebar quality. A wee bit heavy, but they are strong, stiff, and their chrome plating is excellent. They just don't make a bar with the same bend and wide bottom section.

I bought a set of Dajia Far Bars as a last ditch effort to get comfortable with drops. If I don't like those, I will be all over a set of these. Any idea if you can use bar end shifters with them?

They are 7/8 inch outside diameter. I've never owned bar end shifters so I can't give you a definitive answer. Sorry.

I typed out two different well thought out messages here about why drop bars are bad for anyone who isn't an athlete, but then I pressed the extremely prominent button that says "restore auto-saved content", because I'm tired and it sticks out very well when I'm looking for the post button.

The occasional little yellow "auto saved" notifications lie, by the way. It just blanks the post entirely. I hate this new forum software as much as I hate drop bars.

FWIW, I am not an athlete, just a 69y.o. cyclist who has been at it for a well over half a century. Lately I've been riding about 8000 miles a year. I love drop bars, don't like any of the upright bikes I've ridden lately. But I am decidedly not an athlete. That makes me an exception to your generalization.

They do offer many different hand positions. I used to get numb hands after 10 or more miles with drop bars. These reversed chop and flop bars don't do that. I've got my other road bike set up this way, and will modify our Burley Tandem pilot bars like this also.

8000 miles hunched over on bike with handlebars that make your nose touch the front wheel is pretty athletic to me.

I went from Nitto Albatross bars to MAP/Ahearne bars and I quite like the new setup.Drop bars are not for me and never have been. My bike leans toward classic rather than vintage. .

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First, a shout out to [MENTION=360474]Prowler[/MENTION]!

I contemplated not responding to this lest it become an off-topic mono-thematic dialog rather than a polylogue. But then I decided to reply anyway. It is on-topic, after all.

I wrote my first reply as a hint that generalizations are often based on or merely state assumptions that aren't true. The statement that all drop bars are bad except for athletes is one such example. Were there only a few of us who disagree with that statement then one could say, okay, there may be a few exceptions to the rule. But in this case there are lots of us, and the strongest legitimate version of that statement should be "For some who aren't athletes drop bars may be bad."

This follow-up reply is in the same vein but also on-topic. Nose-to-the-wheel would seem to be an assumption, a generalization about how all drop bars are set up and how riders are positioned when using them. FWIW, on some of my bikes the bar is at the same height as the saddle. On the bikes with shorter TT + stem reach combination the bar is noticeably lower, though I didn't make note of that when setting them up. I ride about 90% of the time with my hands on the hoods or the bends just behind the hoods. My back is probably inclined at about 45deg; my arms with straight or nearly-straight elbows are about 45deg also, forming the "French fit" which I find comfortable. On the shorter-reach bikes with lower bars my arms are more vertical and I feel like my body is a bit more over the front wheel. But that position is still quite comfy. I am not comfortable riding the drops themselves and I do it only when riding into a stiff wind. I can get my body almost as low by holding the hoods and bending my elbows. (With an upright bar I can do that only by either sticking my elbows out sideways or turning my wrists outward at an odd angle.) The discomfort of having my abdomen scrunched up when I'm on the drops negates much of the improvement in wind drag, and that's the main reason I don't ride that way very much.

But as for having my nose-to-the-wheel, figuratively of course, no, that is an invalid assumption. Prowler doesn't have his bikes that way either.

Well my problem with them is simple enough. On an ordinary bike with ordinary handlebars, anyone can just put the saddle at the right height and ride, right? It's easy.

But on a drop handlebar bike, it's not easy. People talk constantly about finding the right "fit". What is fit? it's the precise location of the handlebars so that you don't do yourself a mischief. How do you determine correct fit? If you're a dentist you pay someone to take your measurements and strap you to a contraption and then give you a printout. If you're not, you ride the bike for ten seconds, hurt your neck, make an adjustment, ride the bike for ten more seconds, hurt your lower back, adjust again, hurt between your shoulders, over and over again until you find the least bad position. If you're particularly lucky, you'll eventually find a position that's still unpleasant but tolerable. If you're not, you'll buy several stems on ebay and repeat the process with each of them.

Then you still have to ride every day for a couple of months so that you can build up core strength, which will let you support your torso in this horrible leaned over position without having to put weight on your arms. Then it finally approaches comfortable.

Some people may be lucky in that their body is already fit enough to tolerate the position, and they might be doubly lucky and find the right "fit" first try. Those people are witches.