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Are Drop bars just an illusion for most?

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Are Drop bars just an illusion for most?

Old 09-05-19, 08:45 AM
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As opposed to all downhill technical mountain bike riders who keep weight off the bars in an upright position and have the same non braced or locked in grip as hoods?

Sorry for your loss but you don't know how that person crashed at all, do you.
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Old 09-05-19, 08:46 AM
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Originally Posted by HTupolev
No they don't. Getting powerful braking on hoods requires getting fingers low down the lever, and that means giving up the easy secure grip of index and middle fingers on the hood. Spoonrobot's images clearly show this.

I missed this one earlier but now am chuckling quite a bit. Earlier I was asked to post a picture to "prove" a point so I'll ask the same:

Show me a picture where you are braking from the drops where you maintain a secure grip using the index and middle fingers on the bar. And no pretending you can brake with one finger effectively bombing down a dangerous steep mountain descent as was dramatically described.
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Old 09-05-19, 08:50 AM
  #203  
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Originally Posted by Happy Feet
As opposed to all downhill technical mountain bike riders who keep weight off the bars in an upright position and have the same non braced or locked in grip as hoods?
Ignorant, Dirty Heathens, the lot of 'em.
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Old 09-05-19, 08:52 AM
  #204  
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Originally Posted by elcruxio
It's a good thing in Europe we don't faff about riding courses and dogmatic following of riding rules. We typically just ride. Though on group rides it's good to have some rules for signalling, etiquette etc but willy nillying about descent hand position is just silly ya'll.
Well I am impressed you used these two words in the same post. Straddling dialects!
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Old 09-05-19, 09:04 AM
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Originally Posted by mstateglfr
Well I am impressed you used these two words in the same post. Straddling dialects!
Does that require a dialect straddle cable?

One more reason why I prefer disc dialects.
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Old 09-05-19, 09:09 AM
  #206  
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Originally Posted by mstateglfr
Well I am impressed you used these two words in the same post. Straddling dialects!
It gets really confusing at times. Profession wise I mostly deal with either EU or GB vocab. Recreationally I read both british and US writers but most impactful books have come from the brit side, hence a GB vocab bias. However for me as a finn the british accent is just impossible. For finns it seems american accents, specifically texan works best. That is of course if I don't go with finnish accent, but if you watch some interviews of finnish rallycross legends you'll get the idea why I'm not super thrilled about it.

Also it's fun to mix and match.
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Old 09-05-19, 09:28 AM
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Originally Posted by cyccommute

I can't speak entirely for indyfabz but for myself I also have lighter bikes that I ride the same way. It's never been a problem and won't be a problem in the future.
This is my other bike. This is the only time I will post this photo, so look long and hard, folks.

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Old 09-05-19, 09:32 AM
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Originally Posted by indyfabz
This is my other bike. This is the only time I will post this photo, so look long and hard, folks.
Why the secrecy? Such a shame to keep it under wraps!
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Old 09-05-19, 09:48 AM
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Originally Posted by Spoonrobot
Here's a great example of what can happen riding in the hoods (@2:35). This is an experienced rider who got knocked off the hoods due to a embedded rock in the gravel road. His tumbling bike took out another rider as well. I was in front of this crash but even so I now distance myself from riders on the hoods during descents and cornering. It's not as safe a position, even with my 5XL hands I know that the drops are safer and more effective for what's important - staying in control of the bike.

https://youtu.be/7JbJRtszY9g?t=2m30s
Duuuude! Sigh....

I suppose your opinions are the kind which rise out of not seeing or understanding the bigger picture or understanding the basics of posture.

I'm on my phone so briefly: that wasn't a hand position issue. That was a locked upper body and poor riding posture issue.

I wonder about your riding ability in general, because you put WAY TOO MUCH EMPHASIS ON HANDS! After you get basics right (ie. Hold onto the bars but don't death grip) the hands or their position should be a complete non issue as they simply are not important. Yes, I said it, hands aren't important.

What is important is balance meaning that in any given situation there is so little weight on your hands that they don't matter. In descending or riding rough terrain most of the riders weight (80 % maybe?) Should be supported by the feet. Especially in descending there should be minimal weight on your hands and butt to a point where you actually steer with your hips. If you've never done proper descents you won't know what that means.

All this panic about hands can even be detrimental to safety as inexperienced riders believe the doomsayers and start putting extra thought and emphasis on their hands, unconsiously shifting their balance forward away from the feet.

If you ride with locked elbows and leaning on the bars like they're a mobility stroller, you're going to have a bad time no matter where you keep your hands. If you balance on your feet, keep the whole upper body relaxed elbows bent, when you hit a bump you won't have an issue.

By the same logic you've shown, people should not use saddles because if they sit on the saddle like a sack of potatoes and hit a pothole, they're going to be launched off said saddle like the saturn V rocket.

I wonder how's your balance on the bike...
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Old 09-05-19, 09:52 AM
  #210  
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Originally Posted by Happy Feet
Sorry for your loss but you don't know how that person crashed at all, do you.
I know that others on the ride with better descending skills rode over the bump but remained in control, with the only mishap being a couple of ejected water bottles.
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Old 09-05-19, 09:57 AM
  #211  
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Originally Posted by elcruxio
Duuuude! Sigh....

I suppose your opinions are the kind which rise out of not seeing or understanding the bigger picture or understanding the basics of posture.

I'm on my phone so briefly: that wasn't a hand position issue. That was a locked upper body and poor riding posture issue.

I wonder about your riding ability in general, because you put WAY TOO MUCH EMPHASIS ON HANDS! After you get basics right (ie. Hold onto the bars but don't death grip) the hands or their position should be a complete non issue as they simply are not important. Yes, I said it, hands aren't important.

What is important is balance meaning that in any given situation there is so little weight on your hands that they don't matter. In descending or riding rough terrain most of the riders weight (80 % maybe?) Should be supported by the feet. Especially in descending there should be minimal weight on your hands and butt to a point where you actually steer with your hips. If you've never done proper descents you won't know what that means.

All this panic about hands can even be detrimental to safety as inexperienced riders believe the doomsayers and start putting extra thought and emphasis on their hands, unconsiously shifting their balance forward away from the feet.

If you ride with locked elbows and leaning on the bars like they're a mobility stroller, you're going to have a bad time no matter where you keep your hands. If you balance on your feet, keep the whole upper body relaxed elbows bent, when you hit a bump you won't have an issue.

By the same logic you've shown, people should not use saddles because if they sit on the saddle like a sack of potatoes and hit a pothole, they're going to be launched off said saddle like the saturn V rocket.

I wonder how's your balance on the bike...
Yes, it's pretty easy to see the rider had his arms locked and could not absorb the shock of the bump. When watching, I imagine the hands would have come off the drops as well. Simply a more relaxed posture would have probably made that a non issue. Just picture how an old school rigid mountain biker holds their bars to let the bike, not the body absorb the hits.

Last edited by Happy Feet; 09-05-19 at 10:04 AM.
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Old 09-05-19, 10:05 AM
  #212  
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Looks to me like his hands were very important, as the seat was pushed out from under him by the rock, rendering his hands the only point of contact above the feet. Given he was palm-on-hood with nothing holding him but his thumbs, which failed him, i'd suggest riding the hoods like this proved to be completely inadequate for that terrain. I suspect he was riding light on his seat and bars, with by far the most weight on his feet, due to the rock-hard nature of a full rigid bike on rock hard tyres. So then, he could really have done with some risers, bouncy forks and balloon tyres as well. Watching that video was like watching Formula1 cars on a rally circuit.
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Old 09-05-19, 10:07 AM
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Originally Posted by MikeyMK
So then, he could really have done with some risers, bouncy forks and balloon tyres as well.
Unique takeaway.
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Old 09-05-19, 10:36 AM
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Originally Posted by Happy Feet
And no pretending you can brake with one finger effectively bombing down a dangerous steep mountain descent as was dramatically described.
One-finger braking is pretty standard practice in MTB.

And as described before, if you're in the drops, that one finger is positioned to have as much leverage on the brakes a single finger can possibly have. It's an entirely different matter from one-finger braking on the hoods, where the single finger is close to the pivot and has a poor angle on the lever. It's worth several times more torque.
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Old 09-05-19, 10:47 AM
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Originally Posted by indyfabz
this is my other bike. This is the only time this week i will post this photo, so look long and hard, folks. :d

fify.
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Old 09-05-19, 10:47 AM
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Originally Posted by Happy Feet
Yes, it's pretty easy to see the rider had his arms locked and could not absorb the shock of the bump. When watching, I imagine the hands would have come off the drops as well. Simply a more relaxed posture would have probably made that a non issue. Just picture how an old school rigid mountain biker holds their bars to let the bike, not the body absorb the hits.
Originally Posted by MikeyMK
Looks to me like his hands were very important, as the seat was pushed out from under him by the rock, rendering his hands the only point of contact above the feet. Given he was palm-on-hood with nothing holding him but his thumbs, which failed him, i'd suggest riding the hoods like this proved to be completely inadequate for that terrain. I suspect he was riding light on his seat and bars, with by far the most weight on his feet, due to the rock-hard nature of a full rigid bike on rock hard tyres. So then, he could really have done with some risers, bouncy forks and balloon tyres as well. Watching that video was like watching Formula1 cars on a rally circuit.
I'm afraid that looked like the opposite of 'riding light'
For several seconds before the bump, he was coasting, one knee locked at 6 o'clock, arms straight, covering the brakes. In the context of a fast group / race pack, this usually indicates that he's "sitting up" trying not to go up in to the wheel in front of him. That's a pretty static position.

I came to road bikes after spending most of my riding 'life' on MTB's. Rigid and short-travel '90s XC bikes. Some of them were/are very agressive; 3" saddle-to-bar-drop, 140mm -5* stems, and the de rigeur 48mm tires of the day. There's a lot of practices that are fine on a road bike (on the road) that one of those XC's won't let you get away with on trail. Conversely, if you ride your road bike like one of those old racers, you can get more out of it than you would expect.

I dont' know the riding history of the crashed rider from the video, but it looked like pretty standard road bike group riding posture, and due to the pack of bikes around him, didn't see the rock before he clipped it.
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Old 09-05-19, 10:52 AM
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Originally Posted by Spoonrobot
Here's a great example of what can happen riding in the hoods (@2:35). This is an experienced rider who got knocked off the hoods due to a embedded rock in the gravel road. His tumbling bike took out another rider as well. I was in front of this crash but even so I now distance myself from riders on the hoods during descents and cornering. It's not as safe a position, even with my 5XL hands I know that the drops are safer and more effective for what's important - staying in control of the bike.
Better tell this guy he's doing it wrong, then:

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Old 09-05-19, 11:16 AM
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Oh... CX doesn't count because it's not mountain descents? Got it.


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Old 09-05-19, 11:29 AM
  #219  
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Originally Posted by terrymorse
You've been fortunate that your poor descending technique has not caused a crash. So far.
The only merit that argument has is that it can never be proven wrong.

Do you have any evidence that "losing grip of the handlebars" is an actual cause of significant numbers of accidents, because I've never seen it and I've never heard of it happening. When I've wiped out from hitting a pothole-type obstacle, I've ended up on the ground because the bike went flying, not my arms. If anything, the bump forced the handlebars up into my hands. Braking effectiveness is pretty much irrelevant by the time the handlebars undergoing anything that violent, anyway.
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Old 09-05-19, 11:52 AM
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Originally Posted by HTupolev
One-finger braking is pretty standard practice in MTB.

And as described before, if you're in the drops, that one finger is positioned to have as much leverage on the brakes a single finger can possibly have. It's an entirely different matter from one-finger braking on the hoods, where the single finger is close to the pivot and has a poor angle on the lever. It's worth several times more torque.
No.. sorry.. you don't get to claim one finger braking is ok in one position and genre but not the other.

The problem with the "sky is falling if you don't..." arguments is that you are talking to people who actually ride bikes quite a bit and know what reality is as compared to theoretical imaginings. FWIW, I've ridden all sorts of styles for 50 years and currently own and ride caliper, canti, mechanical and hydraulic disc brake bikes. Fake percentages and torque factors don't impress. If there is any problem with hydraulic disc brakes (now becoming the new standard in many cases), it's that they are too easy to apply. I have to be careful downhilling not to lock up brakes because of the modulation effort I am otherwise used to. Absolutely no problem applying activation pressure from a position like the hoods.

And before the rebuttal try to remember - I'm not saying riding in the drops is unsafe. Just that riding on the hoods with modern design is also safe.

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Old 09-05-19, 12:01 PM
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Originally Posted by Spoonrobot
One finger braking from the hoods is almost impossible. One finger braking from the drops is effective and secure.
Double down. You are becoming more believable by the moment. Do you have no idea how ridiculous it sounds claiming one thing is almost impossible while another is safe and secure to people who ride all the time?

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Old 09-05-19, 12:18 PM
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Originally Posted by Happy Feet
No.. sorry.. you don't get to claim one finger braking is ok in one position and genre but not the other.
There's a huge difference in how one-finger braking interacts with the lever between the two positions.

The problem with the "sky is falling if you don't..." arguments is that you are talking to people who actually ride bikes quite a bit and know what reality is as compared to theoretical imaginings.

Almost every single time we bring someone out into the foothills for the first time, they're initially glued to the hoods during descents. The constant effort of maintaining security through frequent hard effort makes for obvious discomfort and a tense upper body. When they start trying to hooks in tough spots, they're immediately faster and looser, and they don't go back.

You say my imaginings are theoretical. What I'm actually doing is trying to come up with theoretical explanations for what I see in the real world.

And before the rebuttal try to remember - I'm not saying riding in the drops is unsafe. Just that riding on the hoods with modern design is also safe.

I don't think that riding in the hoods is necessarily unsafe. And I think riders generally are aware of the implications of their current hand position, and ride and grip accordingly. I've gone over huge bumps on the hoods without my hands flying off, too.

I do think that there are situations where ensuring safety in the hoods requires more effort, and that the drops are a better place to be in the event of a panic stop.
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Old 09-05-19, 12:19 PM
  #223  
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Originally Posted by Happy Feet
Double down. You are becoming more believable by the moment. Do you have no idea how ridiculous it sounds claiming one thing is almost impossible while another is safe and secure to people who ride all the time?
you ride all the time?
yet claim this?

If there is any problem with hydraulic disc brakes (now becoming the new standard in many cases), it's that they are too easy to apply. I have to be careful downhilling not to lock up brakes because of the modulation effort I am otherwise used to.
Hydraulics brings more MODULATION to the table. if they don't , then you have glazed your pads
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Old 09-05-19, 12:23 PM
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Originally Posted by livedarklions
Do you have any evidence that "losing grip of the handlebars" is an actual cause of significant numbers of accidents
I operated bike tours for 10 years, and I remember several guest crashes that probably could have been avoided if the rider had been in the drops. And of course, almost all of the crashes were on fast descents.

Can you cite experts who recommend doing fast descents on the hoods? I can cite several who recommend the drops:

"Learning how to descend safely on a road bike is an important skill to learn...Your body should be relaxed, you should be looking ahead, with your hands on the drops and one or two fingers covering the brakes." —Bike Radar

"In addition to lowering your center of gravity, riding on the drops will give you much greater control over the bikes handling thanks to better grip and less chance of your hands slipping if you hit a pothole or bump in the road." —Bike Exchange

"...the first thing we can learn from watching pro road racers descend is that they move into the position with the most control right at the top of hills. This position on a road bike with dropped handlebars is with the hands on the drops." —Sharp Bicycle

"Top 10 tips for descending...using your drops gets you lower, more stable and it is the most secure position for your hands." —British Cycling

"Riding in the drops while descending is actually safer than riding on the hoods. Not only do you have a better grip on the handlebars, you also have a lower center of gravity which means more traction or grip on the road. Additionally, while in the drops you are in a better position for more powerful braking." —Liv Cycling

"Positioning your hands on the drops gives you a secure grip, provides the best access to your brake levers, and allows you to get your upper body low when you want to pick up speed. It makes you more aero and lowers your centre of gravity for higher stability." —road.cc

"Going downhill you really should be on the drops especially with a nasty descent that way you get better grip and therefore better control and of course you can brake easier." —Merlin Cyclies

"Descending in the drops over the hoods offers a number of advantages. Firstly, it lowers your centre of gravity, thereby making your bike more stable. Secondly, it gives you more leverage over the brake levers meaning you can slow down quicker. Thirdly, it makes you more aerodynamic meaning you can go faster and, finally, it provides a more secure position, where your hands are far less likely to be bounced off the bars should you go over a bump too quickly." —Road Cycling UK

"Most cyclists would agree that it is a must to ride in the drops when descending down a hill." —Prodify Cycling

"Too many folks descend steep, twisty descents with their hands up on the brake hoods. WRONG! ... Your hands belong down in the drops." —Larry Theobald, CycleItalia
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Old 09-05-19, 12:24 PM
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Hey I can make up personal anecdotes too! My parents were killed by a one armed man riding in the drops! Now I'm batman!
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