the great handlebar debate.....

[neilob]

Am I alone in favouring straight bars with bar ends for comfortabloe and safe touring?? I've tried, I've really tried to love drops like I used to but I'm about to go back to straight bars and bar ends. My main reasons are comfort and braking....hands going numb after 30 miles or so of moving around all the positions, iffy braking unless I grab the levers from behind rather than the hoods, and being unable to use good V-brakes which seem (to me) to be miles ahead of cantis. I've read so many times on here that drops are best but I'm struggling to see how they offer everything that straights with bar ends do......unless it's tradition? By the way, I had 40 years of drop bar touring and riding, I still race with drops and hate the way that bikes with straights look. So my bias is strictly functional and preference rather than anything else. But my big worry is that a combination of straights and a single pannier will get me drummed out of the CTC.
Neilob

[EdinburghFixed]

Straights and a single pannier? Good heavens, where's my drum!

Comfort is personal, but I'm surprised you struggle with braking performance. I haven't had any problems with road levers / brakes at all - I mean, they're hardly discs but (in the dry at least), perfectly functional.

[james01]

I find that straights are nice for shopping & local utility trips, but for anything over 3 miles I love my drops. Over 100 years of bike evolution & the basic format is still the same for a reason, whether for Tour de France or just touring France.
PS: If I see you riding your straights I'll give you my grade B acknowledgement ( a slightly condescending nod with just a touch of smugness)

[glueman]

Drops and flats on different bikes here but I wouldn't tour on straight bars. For a while I got lower back pain with drops (owd age!) but the problem was the position, not the bar. Make the stem higher and nearer, possibly use a shallower drop and perhaps additional top levers and enjoy a variety of positions.

On long rides I move round much more, ditto when climbing.

[gilesjuk]

For commuting and town purposes you're better with straight bars, you're higher up and visibility is better which is needed for mingling with traffic in comparison to drop bars. You also have more room for lights, bells, GPS units etc..

Of course you can run shallower drops and then it's less clear cut.

For longer distances the multiple hand positions of drop bars is advantageous.

[neilob]

(For longer distances the multiple hand positions of drop bars is advantageous.)

Now that's the bit I just don't get! I've heard it so many times and used to believe it but I now think its an urban myth....why is it that straight bars with bar ends offer less hand positions than drops? And provided the bike is set up properly, how many tourists do you ever see riding anything except the hoods or the top of the bars? Which are then like straights and bar ends. I'm not trying to be contraversial here because its what makes us individually comfortable that matters, but my personal perspective is that provided the bike geometries and handling aren't compromised by straights why do I deserve to be thrown out of the CTC and confined to the ride-to-the-shops brigade. (he says, tongue in cheek).

[Si]

I find flats with BEs very comfy - plenty of usable hand positions, but they have to have been cut down to just over shoulder width, not left at big wide MTB width.

[gilesjuk]

Hoods, side of the bars before the hoods, tops, drops. That's four.

Straight bars you get one position, if you fit bar ends that's two.

[neilob]

I think you will find many more than two! Grips and bar ends, yes, but there are variants that change position enough to stop numbness. Across the corner is another. Spreading hands across grips and brake levers is another. And it goes on.....I promise there is nothing evangelical in this but the point of the OP was to question the urban myth that drops offer more positions. I don't think they do but it won't stop me using them for racing or liking the way they make a bike look more elegant. Now, I don't do elegant!!
N

[Si]

Hoods, side of the bars before the hoods, tops, drops. That's four.

Straight bars you get one position, if you fit bar ends that's two.

Nope. Three for drops for a number of people, like me, as they can't maintain the pos on the drops for any length of time.

For the flats and bar ends - in my case I use 'L' ends so that's
grips
across where the grip and the bar end join
side of the bar end
angled bit of bar end with wrist on grip
....so that's four totally diferent and usable positions.

and now and then I'll do just inside the brake levers (a little like the flats on a drop bar) for five although I won't count this one as I've not seen many use it.

[EdinburghFixed]

I've never understood the argument that flat bars are better in traffic than drops. I have bull-horn, flat and drop bar options for riding and I've never felt that any of them was 'better', except that the more aerodynamic options allow you to match traffic speeds with less effort. To equalise reach between hoods and flat bars, you maybe get an extra inch (two at most) of vertical height. What are people trying to observe on the road that these few centimetres of difference is showing / hiding?

As far as hand positions go, I always assumed that drop bars were more comfortable because they offer a continuous range of positions (all the way through the curving transitions) rather than the angular positions on flats/bar ends. That's why butterfly bars in turn offer loads more positions (= comfort?) compared with drops.

[Si]

I've never understood the argument that flat bars are better in traffic than drops

I think that it's more to do with the fact that until recently the best brakes (Vs/discs) could only be used from flats (and even with other brakes the flats allow you to use them to mx effect without having to go down onto the drops to grb them). This has certainly been why I've prefered flats in traffic - simply because the bike that they were on would stop better than my drop bar bikes.
Now I have some bullhorns on the fixie and like those too because although they are only SP brakes the position that the lever is pulled from gives plenty of power compared to pulling from the hoods. (plus the extra braking power from the legs).

[glueman]

Agree flats are better in heavy traffic. Typically brakes are superior, you're higher up, weight is further back and bars are wider for leverage when avoiding numpties of all kinds. Tyres usually wider and grippier on flat barred bikes too.
My old MTB - rigid steel, dead straight bars - meets all these criteria but is hard work on the palms and carpel tunnel for anything over an hour. Slightly better with stubby bar ends but not much.

Riding on the drops is do-able with the right position and vital on some our our plummeting descents

[cycleruk]

I have 7 positions on my drops.
And 4 on my MTB with bar ends.
If I put the wide bar on my MTB then I have 2. (no bar ends).

If you have to keep changing your hand position then chances are you're leaning onto the bars ( I know I do).
A more upright riding position shifts the weight onto the posterior and less onto your hands / arms.

[belgiangoth]

I'd rather moustache bars than flats and favour randonneur drop bars (switched to nitto from my old iron 70s set, wider but less length at the bottom, which is a shame). For V brakes, Dia-Compe do drop bar levers as do Tektro (Tektro also now do interrupter levers for V brakes).