I grew up a mountain biker – I have the same issue. Drop bars are utterly alien to me.

Ever had a proper bike fit?

It’s really just a setup issue by the sound of it. Your stem is flipped up and you’ve got a lot of stem spacers which is a recipe for the symptoms you describe.

Drop bar bikes need to be set up with a good reach to the hoods and quite a bit of saddle to bar drop, otherwise you’ll not be able to get in a comfy position.

I’d have another go. Aim for a setup that looks more like this.

😀

Bless you!

I’m not joking

never been able to ride drop bars. always ridden flat bars on my tourer.
also like jones bars which give a couple of nice positions.

Yep, drops are rubbish off road.

Something I’ve noticed recently is the number of people that ride drop bars with straight or almost straight arms. Only been riding drop bar bikes for a couple of years but when I first got one was told to drop elbows and use core to support body not hands. Verycomfortable like that.

Many years ago when I did a lot of youth hostel touring the “correct” bar placement for drop bar tourers was top of bars level with seat. With everyone wanting to be TDF riders nowadays fashion decrees a really low bar position which is inherently much less comfy ( biomechanics innit!)

Sure your body can adapt to this very low bar position but its putting huge stress on your body to do so and until your musculature adapts it will be uncomfy.

I think the issue is that many people are not racing but touring on their drop bar bikes but are attempting to adopt a race position

Drop bar bikes need to be set up with…. quite a bit of saddle to bar drop, otherwise you’ll not be able to get in a comfy position.

Maybe, if you’re;
A) Seven.
B) A small Chinese gymnast,
or
C) A professional racing cyclist.

Otherwise, it’s an affectation.

Long time rider ( 20 years + ) and long time bad back sufferererer. Dropping the front end of my fast bike by 5cm actually helped my fit and comfort significantly.
The issue for me was not enough set back in relation to saddle / bb.

I’m saying this as it’s hard to guess what causes the symptioms without a bike fit.

I’d suggest it would be worth doing before you give up.

Careful OP, the rabid drop bar fanatics will tell you are wrong, despite all your years of trying. They just don’t understand that flat bars are better for most people, especially off road.

People said my tourer would handle like crap when I converted it to flats, but hey it handles really well and is comfy, but they don’t want to hear that.

Enjoy your new comfort ride!

Or yours didn’t fit either and probably should also consider a session.

I have Mary bars on 2 of my bikes. I only fitted them to my 29+ as I didn’t have any others that fitted the stem I wanted to use, absolutely spot on. I’m just about to fit some to the Gravel bike to replace the drops, as I rarely ride it as is…..

I reckon there are two issues here…

1. Your road bike probably doesn’t fit you right.

2. You are rightly sceptical about drop bars for off-road riding. I find them rubbish for anything techy – and you’d probably be better with a 29er HT unless you’re just riding “gravel”.

*runs off to grab hard hat*

Honestly; try my suggestion. If you’ve got a turbo trainer, it’ll be easier to try it on that.
Remove all your spacers and turn your stem so it’s facing downward. Looks like you’ve got an inline seatpost, so push your saddle back a bit. Sit on your bike (but don’t clip in, let your legs hang freely). Now place your hands in the drops; providing your bars are low enough and far enough away, you’ll have no choice but to rotate your pelvis forward to reach them. And hey presto, that’s your position for a drop bar racing bicycle.
Lowering the nose of the saddle ever so slightly might help.
Your arse will stick out backwards, so a setback seatpost might help.
You’ll probably need to readjust saddle height (lower it) as you’ve effectively lengthened the reach your leg has to make.
A narrower saddle will probably be more comfortable.

have we just read the same thread? Seems a balance of “because they’re crap”, “give them another try with a different bike set up” and “ride what you want”. And where are the claims that they are “awesome off road”?

I’m a fan of drops, I find them all-day-long comfortable on the road bike, and quite capable off-road. My CX bike has drops, and I think that they reach a similar limit to the rest of the bike; by the time it’s gnarly/rooty/rocky enough for me to want fatter tyres and suspension, I also want wide flat bars.

I’m very close to building up, or buying a road tourer.

Been looking at the usual suspects, Trek 920, Specialized Sequoia and the other variants of this type of do it all bike.

Been riding bikes , both mtb and road for donkeys years. Always rode with drop bars on a road bike.

Always viewed anything other than drop bars on a road bike as a bit naff, listened to all the arguments about the varied hand positions, but in reality only rode on the hoods and close to the stem.

Never had a problem with flat bars on mtb, then I briefly had a Jones…….

Seriously considering buying a Singular Swift and making a road based tourer using the Jones bars. Now that’s a lot of different hand positions, and plenty of space for a bar bag, Garmin and lights.

Pretty sure I won’t be going drop bar on a tourer, different matter if you are keen and want to race etc, but for most, a type of flat bar would be good.

Also makes it very easy to make the rest of the brakes (disc) and mtb gears ( to make it low enough) for proper grovel climbing.

Yup.

Take a look at the era when normal people used dropbar bikes for their general transport, mainly 1950s and 60s. They did many thousands of miles a year on their bikes.

You’ll notice the bars tend to be level with the saddle, also the toptubes were usually shorter.

Bikes built these days have short headtubes, so to get the bars to a comfortable height means lots of spacers or a kinked up stem. Toptubes tend to be longer, so using the same length stem as you would use for flat bars is likely to mean you are reaching too far.

The Singular Gryphon is an example of a modern bike built for dropbars, but unfortunately it has been discontinued. It had a nice long headtube and a shorter toptube.

To ride a race position you have to be as fit as a racer or prepared to put up with a lot of discomfort. Think tourer or audax instead.

This is a pretty handy guide if you want to use drops on your mtb.

yes, Denise99 — look at the video that Lee Craig did for the Caledonian Way — I think it was on a Shand but you get the picture, Jones bars, simple rigid steel bike — as it happens Swift + Jones here and looking forward to some longer rides this year..