Gresp15C

Swept bars on all of my bikes. I've got osteoarthritis in my neck -- no drops for me. And flat bars pound the hell out of my wrists.

Swept bars give me a comfortable posture, and a hand position that doesn't cause fatigue. I can ride for hours in a single hand position.

aadhils

I’ve got high drop bars. I even went as far as to get bars with a rise to them. I find it easier to get into a rhythm on longer rides while on the hoods.

PhilFo 

Goodness, to be 30 again. And I'm only half again as old, but parts of me are quite aged (due to: combat, injuries, PTSD, booze, lack of sleep, bad diet, bad mental outlook). That's all changed in the last decade and I'm continuously improving my health, largely to regularly commuting on a bicycle, 23 miles round trip to and from work. I have mild stenosis between C-5, C-6, and C-7, so I can no longer get in the drops on an aggressive road bike. That said, my Miyata 610 still has a set of drop bars, but they sit on a high rise Technomic stem which gives me enough lift that I can ride comfortably all day on the hoods and if I need, I can get in the drops for a bit.
You're not old, OP, wait another decade or so when you start to see some medical specialists on a regular basis for little things that life gives you. The handlebar YOU choose is of no consequence really, just ride what is comfortable. Just keep riding.

Darth Lefty 

Word. My dad's heart crapped out at 78 and I don't figure I have any more juice than him. But my mom's dad got on his bike every day and made it to 91 (when he got knocked down by a driver). So maybe... if I keep riding...

mstateglfr 

All drop bars suck, and thats why you need multiple hand positions?
...whats your response to flat bars being disliked because hands go numb and/or ache due to only one position?

Darth Lefty 

Getting a neutral wrist is still important. MTB handlebars don't do that. The entire idea of riding a MTB is moving your body around a lot. I've got regular MTB bars on my mountain bikes but a Salsa Bend handlebar (mentioned earlier) on my Stormchaser. I think Jones bars, various other imitator goofy bars, and the Rivendell catalog are kind of an overreaction beyond that, basically beach cruiser bars. I also think that for commutes more than about 12 miles round trip, drop bars are more appropriate. Even if I don't like them as well

Calsun

The handlebars made for gravel bikes are a bit of an in-between bar with less of a drop than the standard drop bars for road bikes. Even in city traffic I prefer full drop bars that allow me to accelerate faster after having had to make a full stop.

plumberroy

I am not a fan of drops . I have a mountain bike that has them mainly because I had them here. I have a custom Long Haul Trucker that I originally put a flat bar on . After a 64 mile ride my wrist ached I went with touring/butterfly bars . They give me multiple hand positions with a more upright stance. Both my Surly Steamroller and long haul trucker have them now. It's also why my Univega mountain bike has surly drop bars on it

Trakhak

The difference in comfort between your drop-bar aluminum bike and your cruiser-handlebar steel bike likely has nothing to do with the frame material. Shorter wheelbase and drop bars will always feel less relaxing to ride than longer wheelbase and upright bars.

I retired a couple of years ago, but while I was still working, I rode my 20-mile round-trip commute on a variety of bikes, starting with a drop-bar steel track bike (with a replacement fork so I could use a brake), going through a few decreasingly racy steel bikes, and ending with an flat-bar aluminum mountain bike.

Now, I do some miles on a drop-bar (aluminum) bike but the majority on a 1995 Cannondale (aluminum) hybrid with flat bars and a set of clamp-on aero bars. Negotiating city traffic, I'm on the flat bars, but once I'm out of the city, I mostly use the aero bars.

That setup is great. Drop bars are best for racing, but the combination of flat and aero bars is far more versatile. And my power meter shows that my training rides on the two bikes are equally effective. (Not pertinent to commuting, of course---just noting the advantages of this alternative approach.)

Trakhak

Unedited ChatGPT text is replacing "Let me Google that for you."

Calsun

Drop bars allow the rider to make full use of their back, stomach, and leg muscles when going uphill. I can put a lot more of a push on the pedals when using drop bars. The tops of the brake levers also make a better place for my hands to rest than the handles with a straight bar.

Mountain bikes are seldom ridden for many hours, much less long sustained grades as is often the case with road bikes. With mountain bikes the trend has been to wider bars to provide more leverage with the much larger and heavier tires in use.

Drops make no difference in overall stability which is primarily a function of the head tube angle and the amount of fork rake.

Yan 

Faster because of catching less wind.

Wind resistance increases exponentially with speed. If you're riding slow you won't find much difference. When you're fast, you'll know the difference.

slickrcbd

I replaced my bike with drop bars a couple years ago, and I found the opposite. I rarely used the lower bars. I'm a lot more comfortable on the new bike with the upright.
On the other hand, the bike I replaced was an 8th grade graduation gift and while it was just slightly too big for me at 13, by the time I was 18 it was slightly too small. I used that bike for half my life, but it was showing its age. I needed new brakes, new wheels (I was missing spokes) and new handlebars (the padding was all worn off in the upright position and was starting to hurt my hands, but the lower bars the padding was fine). The pedals and the seat had already been replaced.
Anyways, it's possible my discomfort was because the bike did not fit right due to it being slightly too small. The lower bars are about as high as the seat.

Anyways, my experience over most of the life of that bike was that I rarely used the lower bars and was far more comfortable upright.

tornado60

My wrists do not like straight bars. They need to be moved around or they get stiff and cranky. That said I did put cross brake levers on my bike so I can ride more upright. It is my favorite position.

slickrcbd

I suspect you need better padding.
The padding on the top portion of my old bike's drop bars was worn thin on one side, and I was experiencing that with that hand only. I did not have that problem before the padding started to fall apart.
I've pulled that bike out of the attic however so I can leave it at the train station, and if I get many more temp jobs in the Chicago Loop I'm considering replacing the padding or handlebars. I have no idea how to replace the padding however. It doesn't look like it was meant to come off, but it's over 30 years old and falling apart on the top (but not the rarely used curved bottom bars).

mstateglfr 

You replied to me as if I am the one that claimed drop bars suck. I was responding to the poster.
Sure though, perhaps better padding will cure all that frustrates the other poster about drop bars.

sweeks

I had drop bars on my road bike, and I would spend a bit of time in the drops, mainly in the face of headwinds. Eventually, I developed arthritis in one of my wrists and wanted more hand positions. I changed to "trekking" bars and have been pleased with the results.


The bike with its original drop bars.



After conversion to trekking bars

79pmooney

Huge fan of drop bars here, Never got tired of them and I've been on them for 50 years and 200k miles. Yes, issues have come up.. I take the bars I ride very seriously. Dimensions, shape, placement and rotation. I've had injuries come up and needed to make adjustments. But the love never faded. Every headwind, any time I get to feeling enough oats to go somewhere close to 20 mph. Down fun hills. ANd uphill. The hoods and classic stand. Pushing back and power on the tops. Standing on the drops to be as small as possible while I grunt up that steep one into a headwind.

And I never feel I have "wings" out there that might snag something or get bumped by someone else.

Now the drop bars I've come to love look nothing like most modern bars. I don't see how I could be comfortable on bars say like those drop bars in post #42. I'm guessing that if that is what I had to start with, I might fallen out of love a while ago. But my hands still love some of the bars from Italy and Japan of the '70s and '80s. Japan made so many of those as stock bars for common bikes that I'll probably be set for life.

Germany_chris

I was never a big fan of the ergo bars from the 90s and 00s they were just wrong for how I use the drops. The ergo gravel bars like the Richey Venture Max do work for me but they're ugly enough I just can't leave them on a bike.

I've found that I like a bit of rise and sweep on my bars, for a pure road bike the RH rando bar has a bit of forward sweep that agrees with me for my other bikes the Redshift Kitchen Sink with is slightly rearward sweep works best.

We're really spoiled for choice with bars whether your poison is flat or drop.

DidntHearU

dd

RidingMatthew

I had a flat bar on one of my earlier commuters. I traded that bike and went to a drop bar cyclocross bike then upgraded that to my Salsa Journeyman. I love that bike. The hoods are good for most of the commute but if the wind is strong I can get in the drops and that helps. So multiple hand positions and aero benefits are the benefit of drop bars.

Gresp15C

I know you didn't ask me, but my response is swept bars. I don't think changing positions is as important as having (at least) one position that's comfortable from the git-go.

I notice the discomfort of riding flat bars after less than a couple blocks.

bikemig 

I run swept back bars on one commuter and drops on another. My commute to work is not very long though. I like the control and vision you get with the swept back bars. I like how comfortable the drop bars are especially on longer rides. I just think there are pros and cons to each and a lot also depends obviously on how the bike is set up and on the rider. The OP may be old at 30 but I'm older than that. At 30 I liked my bars well below the saddle height. Now I like them at the same height.

ShannonM

Because properly set up drop bars are, by no small measure, the most comfortable.

At least for me.

All straight, or even straight-ish, bars irredeemably suck. One position, which not only catches wind like a clipper ship, but somehow manages to make my palms, wrists, elbows, shoulders, and back all hurt about the same amount. Bar ends add one more position... which is pretty much always wrong.

Weird German "trekking" bars have all of the downsides of straight bars with bar ends, plus the additional disadvantages of having another straight bar clamped a few inches farther away from you, giving you an even-less-comfortable version of the position that you hated on the straight bar you're replacing. Oh, and you can't use a handlebar bag.

Moustache bars: Stabbing pains in both hands before I reached the stop sign at the end of my street. Other than that, I liked them quite a bit... because of the ways in which they were like drop bars.

3-speed style, North Road, Albatross, etc... Pretty good, on the right bike, ridden the right way. These are the hardest to get right, IMHO, because there are so many different sizes and bends, and no real way to know what you're gonna like until you've ridden a few. Still, if you're coming from a straight-bar bike, like a hardtail MTB or a hybrid, I'd start here. But, you know what? The more curves and height changes they have, (in other words, the more they resemble drop bars,) the more I like them. The only reason I built my GT Karakoram with generic aluminum North Roads is that I'm broke, and a drop bar conversion will be a couple of hundred bucks. I like it, but drops would be better.

Are drop bars more aero? Yeah, but that's not anywhere near the top of the list of reasons why I like them. I like them because they are the most comfortable. I like them because they work in every situation in which I ride a bicycle, and in most of those situations, they work better than any of the alternatives.

Why drop bars?

Because they're better.

--Shannon

irwin7638

The traditional explanation for drop bars is that they provide multiple hand positions. My observation over the years is that few riders use any position other than riding on the brake hoods in the most upright position. There are plenty of bars out there that provide multiple hand positions and a more comfortable body posture. You just have to find what works for you. 30??? you have a lot ahead of you!

Marc