ive been seeing alot of bikes around with very long seatposts and very low deep bars. im neither green, old, or fat, and i find riding bikes with this much of a drop on the roads for any period of time uncomfortable and ineffcent. especialy when climbing.

im curious, what is the saddle to bar drop on your bike?

mine is 10cm from the saddle to the tops of classic nitto drops.

Well 10cm is still a big drop. Mine is ~12cm to the tops, + ~3-4 more to the horns.

Never measured it, but eyeballing it looks like around 10cm or so. People running really insane drops are usually either track racers or posers who rarely ride. There is a small minority who actually have proportions that fit that setup and actually ride for more than 5 kilometers at a time, but IMO most fit into either of the first two categories.

My saddle to bar drop is only about 5cm, but my bike has really long reach. I prefer it this way, hence why set up my bike this way...

9-10 cm. On all three of my road bikes, including the fixed one. It's all a compromise between aerodynamics, power, and comfort. You just have to find what works for you, your bike, your riding style. Not what some guy on velospace did.

11cm on my new road bike and about 8cm on my conversion. I want to try a -17 degree stem or maybe go a bit longer to get lower on my new bike though. At 5'8"/130 lbs I do whatever I can to get out of the wind.

And I actually noticed the opposite with respect to the original post. It seems like more and more people are setting up their track bikes like comfort bikes with risers that are higher than their saddles. Not that I don't see ridiculous saddle to bar drop anymore though.

about 6 cm.

^ Agreed. The old-style track-wrack look is starting to phase out of fashion.

It makes sense, though, because even the pros don't generally ride with an absurd saddle to bar drop.

Bike fitting is as much an art as a science and every cyclist I know has spent way too much money on various stem lengths and angles, bar bends, seatpost setbacks, and crank lengths getting everything to be just right.

I think the most ridiculous set up is when some poseur has put riser bars on an NJS negative rise pista stem, which pretty much brings the hands up to where a standard stem and bar would be.

I have ridiculous drop (I'm guessing about 15+ centimeters from saddle to tops), and can ride 60+ miles without much discomfort.

Pic?

It does look pretty neat though.

I always like the unsubstantiated claims.

Tall riders with tall frames usually can handle more saddle to bar drop due to their proportionately longer arms.
The shorter the rider and smaller the frame, this is usually not the case.

ive got a ridicous drop... on my recumbent

I keep my bike up against a brick chimney, the stem - saddle drop is about 1 brick width. Exposed seatpost is about 5 inches or so.

yeah i would agree that my 10cm is quite alot, especially with nitto track drops, but im also 6'3 and ride a frame a bit too small for me. apart from a few random distance rides i dont ride anymore than 30mi on my track bike. any distance above that and i get the road bike out because its blatently the better for that purpose.

yeah i have too noticed that the comfort style is more prevalent, but i also think this is just as absurd as some of the ridiculous saddle to bar drops out there.

i think im verging on prefering a longer reach, but i feel if i start going down that route im am just going to end up with a fixed version of my roadbike.

i noticed during the olympics that most of the riders wernt tucked down really low like the old days and in keirin. at that level it seems to be more important to have a fully open chest. but thats a whole other discusion.

Whatever dude. I ride 600 miles at a time on your Pista

I ride 600 miles on your mom.

Wow...and a Brooks saddle. Because, you know, Brooks are meant to be comfortable, so you can totally go like a thousand miles before your balls go numb.

Dude... Mike?

But how much drop does she have?

Closest I can measure seems to be in the neighborhood of 9 to 10 cm on my Masi.