Drops to flats on a touring bike

[Nearholmer]

My OH bought me some to try, but they won’t fit because I’ve cut the bars down so there’s no room for them!

[Sweep]

My OH bought me some to try, but they won’t fit because I’ve cut the bars down so there’s no room for them!

Have you tried "ski slope" bar ends? The top of those gives you the option of a more inward hand position. I spend a lot of cruising time with my hands there. Can easily get to the brakes if something interrupts my reverie. Traditional ones are pretty cheap.

[Nearholmer]

Current arrangement of the bike in question:

It’s also been like this:

And, this:

And, a few other variations on themes, and TBH none of these arrangements is as good as drops for rides that require a bit of effort or speed. So, next stage could well be drops …… which will make it all but identical with one of my other bikes …… which seems a bit mad really!

The old-fashioned swept-backs are very nice, comfortable, and they look lovely, but are rubbish for hill-climbing, and the Jones ones aren’t much better in that respect.

[cycle tramp]

It’s also been like this:


IMG_1639.jpeg


And, this:


IMG_0903.jpeg


The old-fashioned swept-backs are very nice, comfortable, and they look lovely, but are rubbish for hill-climbing, and the Jones ones aren’t much better in that respect.

Have you tried the old-fashioned swept backs and Jones handlebars with a longer stem - perhaps even a stem that you might be considered too long?

Last weekend I was experimenting with handlebars again (as I have done for the last four years) when I had something of a eureka moment... I was changing one set of 'bars to another, but had forgotten, in my haste to change the stem for something shorter (100mm to 80mm) I had considered that the'bars I was fitting, which had less sweep, and placed my hands more forward, required a shorter stem. As I had failed to notice my error, I tried out my new position with a completely open mind and found the longer stem was an all 'round improvement.

It is possible that swept back 'bars might require an additional 2 or 3 cm to the stem length.... which in turn may mean fitting longer cables.

[Nearholmer]

Lengthening the stem does help in some respects, definitely. Before taking the swept-backs off last time, I’d got as far as 100mm, and before even seeing your thoughts above I actually put them back on this evening with a 110mm, so we’ll see how that feels. I think I might have a 120mm somewhere, and there is room in the cables, so after a few rides I might give that a go.

If you go back up thread, you’ll see the other bike I have swept back on, which is a slightly smaller frame (54cm ETT, as opposed to 56cm), really a bit too small for me, and that bike is a joy with them, but I don't expect to do anything energetic on that one, it’s strictly for pootling.

[pjclinch]

I'm increasingly wondering to what extent bar style interacts with riding style and the relative input of arms and upper body. Over the last few years my style has changed to lean/pull much less on the bars than I used to, and doing that it turns out that bar style doesn't seem to affect my ability to get up hills (assuming I have low enough gears) or, beyond the degree to which I can get and hold an aero position, general oomph.

Given Graeme Obree put in a huge output for an hour on the most minimalist, unergonomic bars going it seems that it's not always necessary to be able to do much with the bars beyond steering if one wants to go faster than a pootle (and while the whole point of the bars was better aero which makes the biggest differences at those speeds, you still need to be laying down a lot of power to get to those speeds and hold them).



Pete.

[mdskids]

Current arrangement of the bike in question:

IMG_2507.jpeg

That's very similar to my handlebar setup, apart from the inner bar ends (on a Tour de Fer).

[Nearholmer]

I think it’s about which muscles come into play at different back-angles, as Colin531 has described in other threads, so that more power is available with the back sloped or flattened.

If that’s right, the next step is comfort with the back sloped, and while Mr Obree may be able to put up with having a parrot-perch up near the middle of his chest, I doubt most of us could, added to which I seriously doubt the usefulness of that thing for steering in any meaningful way, or for doing all the heaving-about necessary on rough, steep climbs.

Which bar-form yields comfort in a “reasonably powerful” position is almost certainly a very individual thing. Clearly drops do for a lot of people, otherwise they’d not be so popular, flattish bars with bar-ends seem to for a lot of riders, very wide bars as used for modern MTB I’m sceptical of for climbing, and swept-backs seem to involve a position that I don’t personally like for climbing, with the hands too far back.

In the context of this thread though, flat bars on a touring bike, if the objective is to be able to sit very upright, little or no slope to the back, then that may come at the price of not being able to be so powerful, which translates into going slower up steep hills, and needing the very low gears to do that without having to force things.

[mdskids]

Regardless of 'power' (which I'd argue is far less important than comfort on a touring bike), is it not also true that more upright = less pressure on hands = more pressure on butt. So a more upright riding position might solve hand and shoulder issues, but may require a different style of saddle, especially if you're spending hours riding each day.

[Nearholmer]

You shouldn’t have much weight on the hands in the first place, barely any, so I don’t think it’s a weight transfer question, but it is definitely a distance apart of the sit-bones question, because when leaning forward, you are on bones that are closer together than you are when sitting upright, so you’d expect to be most comfy on a slightly narrower saddle when leaning forward, and a slightly wider one when upright.

[mdskids]

I see - that makes more sense

[pjclinch]

Regardless of 'power' (which I'd argue is far less important than comfort on a touring bike), is it not also true that more upright = less pressure on hands = more pressure on butt. So a more upright riding position might solve hand and shoulder issues, but may require a different style of saddle, especially if you're spending hours riding each day.

Up to a point...
Colin's fitting guide has a picture of him leaned forwards over his drops with his hands behind his back, so obviously there's no weight on his hands there, but unless he's had his spine fused he'll be doing some work with core muscles to keep his back straight while if he sat up straight more weight would be taken on bones rather than muscles, which being more rigid are better at that.

So while you can take the weight off your hands in a crouch you can't do it as cheaply in overall energy expenditure as sitting upright, but there again you'll be spending less energy overcoming wind resistance, so it depends on your personal physiology and how fast you're trying to go what will be the best compromise.

My personal comfort limit with a crouch position is getting a crick in my neck after a while, having to look (relatively) up in order to see where I'm going, and that's why I do long road trips on a recumbent and if I'm on an upright I tend to prefer a relatively upright posture. I used to have problems leaning on my arms too much, but I think that was misunderstanding fit. However, any position where I'm in much of a crouch will get to me in the neck sooner or later.

I should have a set of On-One Jones Loop knock-offs soon, on a bike that will be doing serious hills and sometimes with a fair bit of luggage, so it'll be interesting to see how I get on with those... I suspect I'll be fine, as riding recumbent for so long now I'm quite used to spinning with very little input to the handlebars, but I'll find out soon.

Pete.

[531colin]

The muscle groups which propel a bicycle are the biggest groups in the body.
Glutes extend the hip. Hamstrings extend the hip, and also flex the knee. Quads extend the knee, and also flex the hip.
Pelvis needs to be "fixed" to something so its the pedals which move, not the pelvis; for an output which can be maintained for an hour, Obree will be "fixing" his pelvis by sitting on the saddle, as we all do, most of the time. (Obree may pull back at the bottom and push forward at the top of the pedal rotation; both of these propel the bike, but balance out in terms of pelvis fixation....I guess not pulling up )
For short bursts of maximum power (sprinting, attacking a hill), you can "fix" your pelvis by hanging onto the handlebars, using arm, back and shoulder muscles....but these muscles don't directly "propel" the bike, they merely "fix" the pelvis to give the propelling muscles a fixed point to work from. If I am working hard enough to need to "fix" my pelvis using my arms (etc) instead of just sitting on it, then I need a reasonably long reach to the bars; reach makes more difference than bar shape. (Traditionally, cyclists refer to this as "working the bars", when really you are just hanging onto the bars to "fix" the pelvis.)
Variations in riding position will use different parts of the working contraction range of the muscles; muscles adapt to this pretty easily.
If you want to take the weight off your hands, move the saddle back. You have to move your hands a lot to change the weight distribution, your centre of mass is much closer to your backside than it is to your hands.