On this thread, there's a link to a link that has this article, which deals with some issues we haven't discussed, like how it opens your rib cage and helps build upper body strength needed in other areas of riding. Says drop bars are especially important for women.

https://www.bicyclesource.com/bike/ch...vantages.shtml

Well done post Dnvr. Hasn't this been a lot more fun then "discussing" the color of one's text.


This next item will change the rate of voting on the OP. I have noticed that among those who have changed (I think that this may have been the basis of the post) more have gone from drop to flat than from flat to drop.

Ballot box stuffers, you may begin now.

Some of us 65+'rs are having a problem with links within links containing articles within threads. Help!

Just to even things out

That's ok, I gave you the link you should click on.. g'head...

Hmmm. So far 38 drop bars to 8 flat bars. Where is this majority of 50+ riders using flat bars we keep heaing about? Must be that "silent majority" Nixon used to talk about.

Now on the road bike it is Drop bars because that is the way road bike is set up. Tandem and MTB both have flat bars but in this poll we are taliking about road bikes. So I am 50/50 in fact. 2 Road bikes and the MTB and Tandem.
Now I would never put a drop bar onto an MTB. They are meant for Offroad and I have enough trouble controlling the things with 27" bars- Let alone doing it with my head between my Knees at the same time

No, you are 100% drop bar on your road bikes.

Drop bars even make good sense in some offroad situations. Maybe not for your circumstances or for most circumstances, but in some rare circumstances they can be a good choice. I've seen single speed rigid 29ers set up for non-competition use with Midge bars that look cool as all hell. and of course there was the classic '87 Bridgestone MB-1 with the Nitto Dirt Drop bar. And there was Jacquie Phelan who won multiple US national and world MTB championships in the 80s on one of the first aluminum mountain bikes - with drop bars.

A better way of putting it might be how many people have raised their bars, of any kind? Most people go to flat bars when they can't ride bent over as much any more. I was never comfortable leaning voer that far, even when I was young and skinny. Although I still have the drop bars on my DF road bike, they are more than 3" higher and 3" closer to me than originally. You will never see me in the drops, but I won't change the bars because of the cost of converting the shifters.


When I bought my other road bike, it had a totally different kind of bar.

I prefer drops to flat bars because I can change hand and arm positions as necessary. The only time I rode a bike with flat bars we rode over 60 miles and I was stiff for days. That was my motivation to go to a road bike.

How about "have you ever changed from flat bars to drop bars? If so, when? Have you ever changed from a main ride with drop bars to a main ride with flat bars? Do any of your bikes have flat bars?

et cetera.

This poll makes it hard to capture what is really out there by the choices of question.

Road Fan

Then write your own poll, and I will have an opportunity to criticize it.

Those options are in the poll.

I took a fixed suspension MTB and put drop bars on it to use as a commuter.

For me; Flat bars = numb hands, drops = comfort.

YMMV!

Oh, and DnvrFox,

You are the greatest!

................ .................. ............... ................

I started out with a comfort bike, (which I still use to commute to work sometimes). 8 months later I got my Bianchi Vople I have never wanted to ride the comfort bike on a ride over 10 miles.

Drop handlebars are much better.

I'm with tsl and richjac... just added a road bike (but kept the hybrid bike) because I was tired of the flat bar and thumb shifters. Now I mostly ride the hoods.

I bought the hybrid/flat bars when I got back into biking a couple of years ago because at 54, I thought I was too old to ride the drops. Guess I had to get that bike so I could learn what I needed to know for the 2nd bike. Wonder what bike #3 will be?

I disagree. Changing bars is swapping parts on an existing bike. Changing bikes is buying a whole 'nother bike. Do the former, and you end up with some spare parts. Do the latter, and you have a spare bike.

Oh. I suppose there *is* another definition for "ride a roadie".

One of my 6 road bikes now has a integrated TT bar with integrated stem and aerobars. So far, I like it. The others are drop bars varying in width, type of bend, and drop depth. I have clip on aerobars that I'll put on one of these later (they hold my lighting system). I estimate I ride 65% on the hoods, 5% on the tops, and 30% in the drops. With the aerobars on, I'll ride them about 15%. I'm riding the TT/aerobars about 50/50.
My MTB has riser bars and an adjustable stem. I have ergo grips and bar ends. I find the fewer choices in hand positions leads to more numbness and pain in my hands.

OK - here are the results so far - after 66 votes.



The hypothesis to be tested was:

"Most of us in this forum seem to be going from drop bars to straight bar, not the other way around."

Have the results supported the hypothesis? Your opinion:

No, the bulk of the answers aren't going from anything to anything!!!

I have had drops on all my road bikes and flats on mountain bikes. The old guys I ride with all ride road bikes with drops and I do not see many flat bars on road bikes while on the road or lined up at bike hang outs. Most of the flatbars on road bikes or hybrids that I see are on bicycle Sunday on a closed section of road ridden by the under 10 years old gang and accompanying parents. They do not use clipless either.

Please consider this as constructive criticism, not a whine or attack.

The poll hasn't really tested that hypothesis, imho. I would think that most of the movement from one type of handlebar to another happens at the point of purchase, by buying a bike with the new setup, rather than by changing an existing bike. I think that someone who replaced a flat bar hybrid bike with a drop bar road bike would probably vote "On at least one roadie, I have always used a drop bar". As a rider, he went from flat bar to drop bar. But the poll puts him in a "no change" category since he didn't modify a bike.