Positives/negatives/preference

Discuss

Drops>Bullhorns>Risers

personal preference all the way. dorps help you get aero, risers can be more comfy, pursuit horns and drops are also good for sprints. but in the end its what you like and what works for you.

Drops.

If your town has alligators, avoid bullhorns.

They all have their pros and cons, depends on what kind of riding you do I guess. I had drops for the longest time, and appreciated the variety of hand positions. It might be worth it to just buy some bars and try it unless you know someone who will let you ride their bike with different bars. I just made the switch to bullhorns because I wanted to try it. I find the bullhorns a little more convenient since I commute in city traffic and climb a lot of hills, good acceleration, more upright for visibility, and able to get over the front to pull up on climbs.

This

It definitely depends on your riding style and the terrain you're going to spend the most time on.

I prefer bullhorns because I live in a hilly area.
I like risers for urban riding.

Drops look best on a bike, but I never cared for them.


Try them all, see what works for you.

Drop bars offer more hand positions than risers, which can be important if you spend a lot of time in the saddle. Otherwise, whatever catches your fancy.

Yep. No reason why you can't buy a cheap set of all three, and swap them out depending on your application.

For long rides over varied terrain, drops rule - you get lots of hand positions that help in using different muscle groups, which is a real plus. I'm a believer in pre-1975 set up here - top of the bars around the same height as the saddle, maybe a shallow or medium drop bar, and since I use brakes fore and aft, road levers for the forward position.

For jumping on the bike and riding 5-10 miles in an urban environment risers are great, they are comfortable, you're upright and don't need to be used to riding a lot.

For greater than that, risers start to suck for the very same reasons, you are too upright, you have one hand position and you can't stretch out.

At this point bullhorns or drops become a lot better. Bullhorns if you are never going to use the drops anyway or don't want to put on brakes or dummy hoods/levers. To me drops without some sort of hood/lever or hood/lever substitute aren't really that comfortable but on a fixed gear with 1 or 0 brakes, they look sorta well, dumb.

Depends on you, the bike, the riding style.. in some particular order.

Risers by a long shot because you can't chop down drops.

lol

I prefer to have a handlebar on my bike.

https://www.purefixcycles.com/blogs/...the-difference

this will tell you everything you need to know.

I recently switched to drops from pursuit bullhorns. For 75 percent of my ride I'm glad I made the change but that other 25 percent being steep climbs I sorta regret it. I think drops with hoods are the best but since we're a vain bunch I forgo dummy hoods .

Sure you can.

It's hard to argue with drops; classic is as classic does. But I have drops on my geared bike and wanted something different on my fixed gear bike, so I went with a nice bullhorn. It's a different riding experience and I couldn't be happier.

I never loved risers; it felt like I was riding a mountain bike.

That bad, huh?

Totally have to go install my 31" riser on the FG.

Well, as always with these things, your mileage may vary. I know plenty of people also love them.

i didnt like that comment because it was pejorative of mountain biking, which rules

but yes, YMMV.

Anything but track drops for the street is A-OK with me. I go between risers and drops pretty regularly.