Cyril Haearn wrote:Just rode 9 km home on my new bike with butterfly bars, had them fitted specially, very first impression quite good, stem swivels too, lots of adjustability and different positions
When I was a boy we all had to have racing bikes with dropped bars
Are butterflies the new drops?
Aside from anything else they're not really new, but...
When I was a teen I had to have a racing bike with drop bars, because it was a racing bike. For racing bikes where getting as low as possible and never mind the comfort makes quite a lot of sense butterfly bars aren't going to get you anywhere fast (which is rather the point when racing) so not there, but for touring they make a great deal of sense. Look at typical European tourers and it's entirely likely this is the sort of bars they'll have. Drop bars on a tourer are something of a British institution, but with most tourers riding on the straights, corners or hoods rather than the drops almost all the time it may well be the case that just because it's an institution doesn't make it the best idea.
I went from my "racer" (a Raleigh Olympus) to a traditional British tourer (an EBC Country) and a lot of that was I felt that was what a Proper Bike was, but I abandoned drops on upright bikes after I started riding recumbents for touring, and frankly I don't miss them. That you have to be in an relatively uncomfortable position you don't usually use to get maximum braking effect, or add rather contrived extra levers, or these days only access the gears if you're on the hoods, isn't what you'd get if you were designing a cockpit from scratch IMHO.
If I were riding an upwrong a long way I'd probably go for butterfly bars. Failing that, straights with bar-ends (what my upwrong hack bike has).
Pete.
Often seen riding a bike around Dundee...