Earliest drop bars?
 

The shape of some early drop bars I've seen make me wonder if they weren't just standard bars turned upside down. Any idea when the earliest drop bars came about and their origin? I figured if anyone knew, it would be this lot.

Just how OLD do you think we are?

Settle down there, grandpa! ;)

1903 Tour de France - drop bar like handlebars

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ovsB6bOjfx...b65fdc4a3b.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ovsB6bOjfx...tdFpeloton.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ovsB6bOjfx...in03winner.jpg

Major Taylor 1899 World Champion

http://www.majortaylorassociation.org/images/onbike.jpg

Really, I think nearly all early handlebars have some drop. Ordinary ("penny-farthing") handlebars have quite a bit of drop, because the headset is so high and they have to allow room for the rider's knees. Riser handlebars are a late development, and started as drop bars reversed. The North Road handlebar, for example, was a popular style of drop bar, that became even more popular in reversed form.

Many early bars were designed to be up or down, casual or sporting. I have seen many early non-race bikes with the bars up so they look kind of like a roadster. Not only set up this way but also advertised this way

Looks like they were around by 1907 anyway:

http://www.os2.dhs.org/~john/drop-bars.jpg

Nice post.

Hipsters with fixies. That could have been taken along North Avenue in Baltimore last week.

Cool. Its good to hear the full body sash is back in style.

;)

Only if you win...

That stem in the middle of the bottom row makes me chuckle... Okay enough of my immaturity, resume your drop bar discussion!

Is that tech getting ready to apply leeches? do a doping test? or, take that guy off at the elbow ?

it's good to see they had drunken homeless folks bar hoping in 1907 as well:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Y.../drop-bars.jpg

:roflmao:

1899 Schwinn World track bike.

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d7...Catalog/08.jpg

Just for fun, ran that price through an online inflation adjuster and got this:

And your comment made me LOL. I love immature comments like this!

Post-race blood letting. Cures what ails you.

I had the same curiosity not too long ago. While growing up, I was pretty ignorant of road bikes -- all I saw were BMX and mountain bikes. So drop bars have always seemed exotic to me. I've since learned that they figured out the benefits of getting low on the handlebars pretty soon after the invention of the safety bicycle. :D

I've found this illustration from 1891 in an anthology of the first 25 years of the A.N.W.B. -- The Dutch cyclist union that would become the biggest auto lobby group around. Eventually.

http://ijsberg.net/pics/vries_velo-illu2.gif

In a book I read earlier this year, about Major Taylor, his European tours, and the first years of the Tour de France, it was said that Taylor claimed to be the inventor of the now so common race position. The author found that claim dubious, because there had been predecessors.

Wouldn't be surprised to see Rivendell, Velo-Orange, or even Soma Fab reissuing those "L'ideal Guidon" bars.