Mango point AR 🙂 job done . Drop bars are spot on for the journey you have described, the upright wide position of a mountain bike is a right PITA when slogging along a road into a headwind.

I like my Whyte Shorditch for winter commuting.

But saw a Kinesis Tripster ACE in a shop the other day that made think twice.

I’ve used a Genesis Equilibrium for the past few years. But have suffered a bit of a shoulder injury this year so have started to use my 29er. The riding position is much nicer for me. Speed is much slower – about 5 minutes over 7 miles, but that’s probably because I’m still using nobblies.

If I was to buy another commuter – I’d probably go a Croix De Fer and put flat bars on it.

I would go for a gravel bike. The roads are shite, full of holes and arseholes. A gravel bike will give you something like 38mm of tyre to smooth the ride, and you can take it off road to avoid the arseholes.

I don’t like drops either, so I’ve bought a GT Grade flat bar bike. Comes with the same frame as the gravel drop bar version but with a handy triple sora groupset with shimano hydraulic brakes.
I really like it and having put bar ends on it find it ideal at commuting with the ability to fit wider tyres to go off the beaten path. You can also pick them up pretty cheap at the minute

I was against drops so fitted flats on my CdF 2015 when I got it new. Rode it like that for the commute over winter in the High Peak and was ok, swapped the bars for some low risers off a BTwin which felt slightly comfier then gave in and went to the original drops and was a huge improvement. Fully converted to them now, wouldn’t go back for sure (and I’m used to seatless trials bikes with super high front end setups).
Also found the standard Conti semi slicks to be more than upto the job riding down roads heavily used by HGV’s accessing quarries so loads of potholes and rough riding, speed was pretty decent (up with the roadies on Strava segments) and not one single puncture.