ive got chopped and flipped bars on my bike, and honestly, it's the most comfortable setup i can imagine. ive ridden drop bars before, and after a while, my back gets tired and they can suck for city visibility IMO. flatbars are plain silly -- not only do they look rediculous on a track bike, but they make the bike ride like a waaaay oversized BMX without a seat drop.

sure people will argue that im wrong and that flatbars are so cool, but this is just my $.02

I personally think Porteur and Randonneur style bars are really comfortable, depending on the geometry. Mustache bars are just too weird looking, so I have never tried them.

I just put those on my (stock) flatbar road bike. I like them. It's got those thumb shifters so I moved those to the stem and the brake levers on the straights near the ends of the bar. I think I installed it upside down to give me more drop (I didn't know it till i saw your pic, I thought I put them right side up). The bike shop guy found them in back so neither of us had seen anything like it(I got them reasonably cheap). The most difficult thing was taping in sections and having it look like one piece. I recommend these.

look at them upside down

Some really fine points were completely missed here!

Flat bars or risers actually pick a rider's head up to see in traffic without craning the neck. They also fit better in traffic once chopped to shoulder length.

Cyclocross bars are excellent bars, not too road-y drop, wide enough for control, flared sides (like the midge) for more leverage up hills, usually more ergonomic. Salsa Bell-laps are great.

I actually have three set-ups for whatever I feel like riding that day. I run Nitto B115s for longer rides, Nitto B123s for the velodrome, and MTB risers cut down a bit for prarie paths and kicking around town. None are perfect but none are inherently flawed either.

Then you'd have to put then stem even higher. I could care less how they look. Unless the bike is way to big for you they won't work all that well.

The "handshake" (thumb up, pinky down) position represents the strongest and most stress-free orientation of the hands on the handlebars.
This corresponds to the hoods of drop bars or the horns of bullhorns.

Sit in a hard chair with your feet aligned as if on pedals and about as far apart as on pedals.
Hold a pencil in each hand.
Lean forward and imagine holding your handlebars about as far from your hips as suits you; and begin to stand up.
Just as your bottom begins to break with the chair, look at the pencils in your hands.
The angle of the pencils indicates the angle of the hoods or horns, and the angle of your torso (as determined by the height of the bars and the length of the stem), best suited to YOUR body.

If you think about it, riding on the horizontal section of bullhorns, road drops, or even track drops gives you the same exact position as flats, although often narrower. Risers do have a rise, but that's the kind of adjustment you should be making at your stem.

Flat bars of the same length allow for a lot more leverage than drops or bullhorns.

Also, you can't get much sweepback in drops.

No it represents the angle your torso needs to be balanced over your feet when getting out of a chair of a given height. If you saddle has the same height and depth of the chair that may be good but it(like most of the "tricks" you post) is a pretty ****ty rule in general.

Likewise how you hold your hands with no load doesn't set a hard and fast rule for how you can best hold bars and apply force in all the directions needed when riding a bike.

You have that backwards. hold your hand like you were holding flat bars of a given length. Now pretend you are holding the hoods or horns of the same length. You will see that as you rotate your hand your forearm moves out about 2-3cms on each side. So flat bars of a given width provide the leverage of horns or drops about 4-6cms narrower.

I meant on the flat part of the bar only, which is what he was talking about (since we were discussing visibility and getting your head up without craining).

Yeah since you can't fit your hands all the way out to the end.

But since you generally use a shorter stem with drops or bullhorns than flats the difference between hoods and flat bars shouldn't be that great.

Perhaps you're just referencing how they're typically situated in the bicycle world, but that seems like it would be ridiculously uncomfortable if they were a foot above your pelvis. Your wrists would be angled almost to the extreme.

My girlfriend has a Schwinn World Tourist with those types of Porteur bars, or whatever it is that they're called, and they are level with the saddle. Meaning when I ride the bike, I'm slightly leaned forward with my hands placed out in front of me with my wrists hardly angled at all. With the right saddle for that kind of riding position, I actually think it's incredibly comfortable. Especially on a bicycle that I won't be riding more than 5-10 miles a day. I'm actually seriously considering putting some porteur bars with no rise on my new IRO build for that reason.

No I'm referencing how they would get in the way if you put them on a correctly fitting road or track bike.

niice

i especially liked this gem from the bike snob site:


"Risers with Quill Stems

Using risers on a street bike is better than drop bars with grips on the tops. At least the rider has come to terms with the fact that he or she will be staying in the upright position. And sure, sometimes you need a little more bar height than your steer tube would otherwise allow. But very often I see bikes with quill stems and riser bars with the stem lowered to its minimum height. Why not just use regular bars and raise the stem? There's a reason you didn't see risers much until the threadless thing took over. And yes, I realize it works just fine, but it's making five lefts to go right--like using air conditioning and the heat at the same time--and consequently inelegant."

SO TRUE.

why use flat bars and raise the stem? how is that any better than risers with the stem down?

I like my road drops with a billion hand positions. The good thing about bars is they aren't that hard to change out depending on your stem. Ride a bunch of them and you may find you like some for a while and then want to change em' out. I change bars every few months between drops, flat/riser, and horns, depending on my mood.

I think all of you are elitist pricks. Let people ride whatever the **** they want. I've ridden drops, bullhorns, and now risers. **** the haters.

word.

ape hanger ftw

http://www.bikeboneyard.com/ape%20hanger%20bars.JPG

isn't making 5 lefts just another left?

I'm so glad you brought a year-old thread back from the dead to impart this great wisdom upon us all.

bull horns have all pros and no cons IMO

I'm using a nitto porteur bar, it's awesome except for climbing where I have ZERO leverage.