Just a few points worth thinking about:

- Rather than focusing on frame size/handlebar height, people should pay attention to torso angle. It's silly to look at someone's bike and say that it doesn't fit when body proportions can make a huge difference from person to person.

- The flexibility you need for cycling, as it pertains to position, isn't so much lower back as it is hamstring flexibility. Hamstring flexibility is what allows you to have a full range of motion (leg extension) through you pedal stroke when bending over.

- There is no such thing as being 'fitted to the drops' or 'fitted to the hoods'. Your bike either fits you, or it doesn't. Part of bike fit is fitting the bike to your body, and part of it is having your body conditioned to fit on a bike. To optimize your fit, you have do both.

Good points, Joe, but it also depends what "fit" means, don't you think?

Comfortable?
Efficient?
Aero?

I know people who can ride all day on the hoods, and don't last 5 minutes in the drops.
I guarantee they think their bike fits them, and most of them had them fitted at a shop.

To me, that's a situation where maybe they're not conditioned to ride the drops.
(I know I start out in the spring about 1-2cm higher on the stem, reduce it as the summer goes on)
BUT, the stem height, reach, and bar angle were set while they were on the trainer, on the hoods.
I would propose that the bike doesn't fit them in the drop riding position.

When I rode Belleri bars, you could really only ride the drops;
if you used a shorter stem, etc to fit when riding the hoods, riding the drops was nearly impossible.

As I also ride a variety of upright bikes, I find bent is a good term to define the fitting I mean, thanks to the current bike I am able to bend at the pelvis, and move my butt in the saddle as needed and use my full range of muscles for pedal stroke.. quite awesome being as I had no idea before.*

Your last point though, I think that's a personal thing... you sound like you're a serious cyclist and quite on point with fitting. Lots of other people don't vary their positions much though, and it is actually easy enough to fit a bike to just the hoods if you don't really care about saddle position for anything else.

A good fit is a compromise of those three elements. If speed and comfort were mutually exclusive on race bikes, there would be no avid road cyclists.

I understand what you mean. The level of comfort achieved is somewhat proportionate to riding frequency. Enhancing the precision of your fit goes a long way for comfort and efficiency, but reaches the point of diminishing returns more quickly the less often or hard one rides. Thanks for the compliment, though (if intended as such).

Lack of lower back flexibility is a factor for me as well, plus a touch of mild scoliosis, the bigges issue is perhaps just being too fat to tuck into an aero position. I'm going to gravitate toward upright bars this summer and focus on riding comfortably this year. Perhaps I'll lose weight and become flexible to ride the drops eventually, but for now it'll be better to just ride. I can ride for hours comfortably in an upright position, or on my recumbent, but can barely get through the club ride on my road bike due to back pain.

Size of drops, length of head tube, top tube, and stem all play a part.
As does your overall flexibility, not just your lower back. your neck and hips also play a part.

Unless you are trying to race, I would try to achieve a comfort on the bike. Be that on the tops, drops or the hoods.
Very few can get all. I have been fit by some of the so called greats in the bike business, and had custom bikes built to these specs.

All fit, all are comfortable, but NONE are all comfortable in all three, drops, tops, or hoods.
Not to say they are uncomfortable, just more comfort in one or another.

I would rather feel good during and after a long ride, then look the way some feel I should look.

BTW; trying to get fit over the net is not the easiest thing.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

Very good to hear - and mirrors my experience completely. Though I do have a wee bit of standover clearance over the TT on my current ride, it's not much (really not much) - and chancing on to a significantly larger frame than I'd been riding previously, at a time when I was not nearly experienced enough a cyclist to even begin to think about some of the nuances folks are getting into here, introduced me to a whole new level of comfort and opened up the drops as a preferred position. Glad you're liking the fit on the new build!

It wasn't meant as an insult ;) or it would have spelled SRS.

:roflmao: I think I may have known her too!! :D

...and as he handed me a drink,
He began to hum a song
And all the boys there at the bar
Began to sing along...

This

"...I think it's the TT/Stem length. ..." RaleighSport

This occurred to me as a possibility upon reading your description of your backside relative to the saddle when your hands were on the drops.

Long ago, somebody mentioned to me related to position on the bike, that the back should be flat; not arched, not concave. Moving from hoods or top of bar to drops should involve rotating the back at the hips rather than curving the back to accommodate a saddle to bar distance that's a little too short. Hips shouldn't be rotating relative to saddle in a way that would be grinding on your perineum.

In actual riding of course, just to keep from overdoing a single position, it's going to be natural to shift around on the saddle a bit, back and forth and so on. I've never had back problems that kept me from using the drops, but I understand people might be mainly using the hoods because they do have back problems. If this works for them, that's fine.

I like the drops because that seems to be the best, most efficient position to get the power to the pedals. Alternating between hoods and drops is good for giving the hands a break. Seems easier for me to breath on the hoods.

Lets face it, riding in the drops is not naturally comfortable. You can fit yourself to the particular bike for the best position but it's also possible you may compromise comfort/efficiency in the other positions you ride more frequently. If your bike has race geometry you have to expect this. If you are switching to another bike of a different style of riding (race bike over to a sport or touring) you can fit best you can but somewhere your body is going to hurt a little as it adjusts.

I didnt like riding drops on my Trek 460 because of the discomfort and feeling cramped all the time....well yeah, it's race geometry. I adjusted stems on seat and steerer as well as front/back on the seat. The rest of it depended on me training the 53yr old body for that position. Now I like it and will gladly train all the more in the drops for those windy sections and for variety of positions.

If I hadnt trained in the drops I wouldnt have survived my first century with the front half being in a stiff headwind. Or the many return trips to training rides where the body is whooped and you gotta make it home.

No one told me that directly, but once I got onto the super course (with it's much longer TT and much shorter stem), I find myself fairly straight to the TT (which feels not only more comfortable but more aero!!!!!!).

And for anyone else with fitting issues, feel free to post in here etc.. I've got mine solved for now I think.

*facepalm*

anything done incorrectly can lead to injury.

yoga has been done for centuries (technically yoga is more than just the physical excercises westerners do but whatevs).

let me guess, you're also the type of person who disagrees with using free range weights at the gym (like barbell squat), because they could lead to injury right? you're one of those guys on the weight machines and the cardio machines at the gym aren't you?

Great thread...lots of really good tips. I mostly ride the hoods, but I ride the drops when I'm going into the wind or if I want to shave some time off my ride. I stay away from the tops except a short breather once in a while.

This is good to keep in mind...I saw a tip on Sheldon Brown a few years ago that referenced this. There, the advice was to also keep your weight on the pedals and off your hands and butt.