I agree and I can see why most prefer drop bars. Perhaps I'll change my mind one day, but I prefer the flat bar bike. I like the arms a bit wider. I love the Ergon grips on the flat bar and feel that position combined with bar ends and the bars at the height of my seat gives me decent speed and comfort. I like having the brakes and the shifters right there. It's simple.

I can't come on too strongly here, though, as I've never gone on longer than a 40 mile ride.

I used to own a drop bar bike and never really enjoyed it. But it was a cheap bike and I bought the wrong bike at the wrong time--this was in college and the road bike was stupid as it offered no function. I sold it about 5 years after college and bought a flat bar hybrid Raleigh, in about 1990 and rode it a lot--especially when I added the rack and fenders. That Raleigh is with my son at college today. Bought the Breezer in 2005 or so and ride that a lot.

It's all about how much you ride.

Haha. See, that Swiss guy (is he on an E-bike?) has very flat bars , while the German (is that Hans Rey?) is using risers.

I see what you did there.

Jamis has some nice ones, made of cro mo no less, but many road bikes can be easily converted. The ones with integrated brakes/shifters might not be worth it, but one with bar-end shifters would be fine. Also, if you get curve3d bars, you will not only be more comfortable but you can use the road brakes levers.

I've been waiting for four pages for someone to tell you that "speed" is not a concept that applies easily to bicycles as an intrinsic of the bicycle itself. For the same rider position, your Scott will not be slower than a converted road bike or a different manufacturers brand of flat bar road bike with the same rider. Or, to put it another way. Save your money and get faster on the Scott by riding more and faster, weight training, cross training, etc. Ounces lighter won't make the same rider faster on a different bike. Pounds lighter. Yeah, probably. So, if you have thousands of dollars to spend on a high end road bike which you would then have to butcher to make into a flat bar cruiser... ... erm... why?? Decades ago when my life was doing laps of Prospect Park on my Atala road bike I was caught and passed by this guy on a flat bar road bike... a fixie actually... this was maybe 1980? I reeled him in and we cruised along at his pace for awhile. Sitting up no hands he was going at the same speed I was in the hooks. He was whistling and singing in spanish and having a great time. When we got to the big hill he got out of the saddle grabbed the (flat) bars and flew up that hill like a boid. I never saw him again. Clearly though I never forgot the lesson. Your Scott is a far, far better bike than what that guy was working with those many years ago but he could stomp riders on more expensive bikes regardless of flats, drops or bar-ends because he was fit. Are you feeling me?

H

Just cuz you got your butt kicked 30 years ago doesn't mean you have to take it out on the rest of us.

Actually I did say that spending thousands on another flat-bar road bike was a waste of money. I even went as far as saying that for a typical commute the bike itself often doesn't make a ton of difference.

...as long as you're not biking home directly into a headwind...

I know exactly what you are talking about. It's the pure power that you can get when you pull on them. For sure.

I don't think it will be that simple. Compare the top tube length of a road bike(drop bar) and a hybrid(flat bar) and there is usually a difference by 4-6cm. If you convert a road bike to flat bar you will need a REALLY LONG stem to the reach that will optimize your position. You can compromise the bike's handling by doing this since there will be too much weight on the front end of the bike. You can convert road bikes to bullhorns since the reach is about the same if not slightly more than drop bars, but you really have to consider getting a bike frame that is generally longer on the top tube when you are considering putting flat bars on it.

Converserly, the same thing is true when trying to convert a MTB to drop bars. The top tube is way long so you need a really short stem and once you do this the handling is affected in a negative manner that the bike was never designed for, there will be too much weight on the back.

If the OP wants to convert a road bike that originally took drop bars, he/she would be better served by getting a bike one size bigger in order to get a longer top tube or just buy a performance hybrid like the Cannondale Quick that is already designed for flat bars.

Then it's settled. The fast flat bar road bike that the OP is looking for is the Blue Triad SL:

Sorry. Lazy reading on my part. I thought you were still talking about hands.

I had a Fuji Absolute 2.0 for a couple weeks and took it back. I don't like the shifters or the gearing and I didn't like the riding position, the aluminum frame gave a bone-jarringly stiff ride in spite of the carbon fprk, and it weighed only 1 pound less than my comfy Soma Doublecross with drop bars.

I'm too much of a retrogrouch for a bike like that. If I ever want something faster than my Soma I will go for a road bike, not a 'tweener.

Not Exactly. I thinks it's more of a challenge not to end up reaching too far forward and having too much drop. Flat bars have no forward reach. Drop bars do.

There's about a 20mm difference in top tube length between my MTB and my road bike. That's well within the normal variation of stem sizes one would use to fit a bike. Is someone using a 100mm stem on a road bike instead of 120 going to experience a huge difference in handling? Probably not.

I did a drop bar conversion on my mountain bike. Getting the stem right wasn't super easy. Partly because of the difference in bars and top tube length but also because I wanted more weight on the rear tire since it's my winter bike. If I wanted a riding position more comparable to the way it was originally or to my road bike it would have been simpler.

I've read this a few times on these forums, but is it actually true? I checked my Trek FX 7.3 against the Trek Madone 6.9, and the effective top tube length was less than half a CM different (on the small size at least). I compared the Scott Sub 10 against the Scott Addict RC and found that the top tube differs by 2 cm.

This might be true if you're comparing road bikes vs hybrid bikes based on MTB-style frames, but a lot of hybrid bikes have road-bike style frames now.