Yes, but this argument is always anecdotal. Some mountain bikers can drop roadies on paved roads. The reason that you are pulling away from full-suspension bikes on a rigid on rough downhills is because you are a much better cyclist than them. Equipment is always secondary to aptitude.

I'm with Serious. The pedaling efficiency and aerodynamic benefits afforded by drop bars have a negligible benefit in today's mountain bike world, and a net negative effect by severely decreasing the rider's ability to both transfer weight rearward and, as a corollary, to wheelie over obstacles. Furthermore, the rider loses much of the ability to absorb impacts with his or her arms.

Good grief, I can bunny hop at least as well' with drops, and I can get my weight FARTHER back with drops. Think about it, the bar curves down and BACK, this is especially true with Dirt Drops and mustache bars. You grip the bottom ends and your hands are right next to the headtube.

Yep. I've bunny-hopped my road bike plenty of times to clear potholes or to jump curbs. I find that the technique is a little different but equally doable as with my flatbar mountain bike. It's a good skill to have when riding around in some urban environments.

Print-out those pictures of Tomac so when you go trail riding you can show your buddies and say "See? It's not just me!!!"

And while you are at it, make sure your bike is a beefed-up rigid roadie with fat tires and toe clips. That way, your chances to hurt yourself on technical trails are increased ten-fold. :D

Doesn't that make you unable to brake though? I cant reach the levers from that far back on the drops on my roadie. Kind of a dicey way to descend a hill off-road. Some people I have seen using drop bars for serious off-road use a second set of brake levers so they can ride on the bar-tops while braking. It's more of a cross thing, but fairly rare since those guys are usually trying to save weight.

Actually the C-26 that Tomac and quite a few others (such as Julia Furtado) were using was a bit of a timebomb waiting to go off. They didn't know it at the time of course and the bike performed well and was quite strong... at least for a season. However over time, there was delamination issue of the CF at the bonds with the aluminum lugs. The problem of course was that Yeti neglected to properly isolate the interface between the CF and aluminum with an inert material such as mylar. I think this was caught and fixed fairly early on but Tomac's C-26 from 1990 is not a ridable bike.

Either you run curved road levers which mount on the drop so you can still get a finger tip up there, or you mount regular MTB levers on the lower straight section if you're using Dirt Drops or Mustache bars.

If drops truly increase your bike handling ability, you certainly should be running them on your P1. Make sure to post pics. :D

Sheesh, even Sanjay switched to flat bars on his road bike at Sea Otter this year:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...sanjayjump.jpg

and yes, he landed the whole six-pack...

Gastro, those look like the same wheels you run on your SX trail.

Have you ever ridden any steep or nasty terrain on them. If you ever get to Pisgah I'll take you yo a trail called Bennet Gap and I bet you see the negatives in the first half mile. :D

http://www.galbraithmt.com/images/fi...lds_500pix.jpg

Found another pic of tomac jumping-ish. Just figured another pic for you guys haha

In addition to the drop bars, Tomac is also using cantilever brakes, an elastomer fork, a Tioga disc wheel, and neon yellow water bottles. Point being, just because he used them, doesn't mean they're appropriate.

edit for the old schoolers: anyone remember those neon Troy Lee feathers on his helmet? lol.

Some think that riding a bike isn't appropriate.

Sorry, to clarify, that stuff isn't appropriate for XC racing . An activity for which a bike is required.

where can you find those road ends?

Hey now, I won't hear cantilevers spoken ill of!

how the hell is it that drop bars keep you from getting your weight back? The bars attach at EXACTLY the SAME place as flat bars/riser bars (that is, they attach to the stem, which wouldn't change, or if it did, it'd get shorter for the drop bars, because of the reach to the drops, meaning your bars would be closer to the headtube, or FURTHER back). With CX type brakes on the tops (what roadies call the flat straight part of the drop bars), regular brakes on the hoods, and the drops, you have at least three advantages over flat bars:
1) you can get FURTHER back while maintaining braking ability for descending
2) you can get FURTHER forward while climbing (hoods/drops)
3) you have a whole crapload more hand positions for long rides

the list could probably be longer, but I don't feel like typing anymore.

Oh, and before you go saying, "but drops are too narrow" you can get drop bars in 50cm widths without having to get them custom, and as much as some of you pay for your CF flat bars, custom wouldn't be much more expensive, if at all.

Drop bars aren't cool, that's it. The facts, logic, and geometry are against the flat bar. But style is with the flat bar, so, hey, why screw with fashion. Anyone ever seen Clueless?

=clue..learn to ride. Wicked or not? I like /\ the post.

A well reasoned reply.

Do you really think that top XC racers care about looking cool over winning? Can you be that naive? Have you not seen enough drop bars in cyclocross to understand that where is appropriate people will use whatever makes most sense?

Something for you to consider are Butterfly bars. I rekon they will be just what you're after. Starting from the clamp they go forward, theres a forward parallel grip position, they curve back giving you a perpendicular position and then curve back to a parallel closer position which is where you bold on your standard moutain bike controls. You can play around with lengthand height of stem or angle of the bars to get just the positions you want.

Do a search for butterfly handlebars and you will see what I mean.

Regards, AnthonyG

Note that Tomac's bike also had cantilever brakes.

Just because they worked for him doesn't mean it's a better option today. Anyone out there interested in swapping out their V's or Disks for canti's since Tomac used them?

Bikes have evolved through years of riding and revising. Just because something worked 10 years ago doesn't mean it's a good option today.

I'll chime in with my $.02..............

Try the drop bar (or moustache), you might really like it. It you've got the stem length right and bar height set up close to saddle height, there's no reason it won't work well, current fashion be damned. Use a shorter and higher stem so the brake hoods on the drops will be right about where the ends of your flat bar are now.

One thing to look at when climbing is your hand rotation to use your biceps effectively. Having your hands on a set or brake hoods with drops, or on bar-extensions with a flat bar, puts your hands and arms in essentially the same position.

Drops with bar end shifters give you multiple hand positions, good climbing leverage, and (dare I say it?) a friction shifting option.