You can get a dropbar that fits mtb brakes and shifters. I use them on my general purpose bike.

It is a very short drop.

If I was that fit, I’d probably set up like that too. That has the look of a rider who has ridden big mileages.

Two classic road bikes, note the seat to saddle heights. (Mate holding them, blue one is mine)

Note how low on the bars the brake levers are in your photo. On a modern bike the brake levers will be the same height whilst having a lower stem due to bar geometry.

Back in the day it was impossible to get a tight bend in a handlebar. Materials and processes have improved and now most bars use a changing radius with flat ramps, thus stems have lowered whilst the fit has stayed the same.

Good bike-fit has not changed.

I think everyone’s point is that if he set them up differently he might not have the complaints he has about them rather than it being about drop vs. flats.

David – the rider in the pic you say is great is putting his back in a position that is very damaging. Basic biomechanics. Low bars give you an aero advantage that is all.

Your normal spinal curvature is this
the rider on low bars is flattening out their lumbar spine and hyperflexing their cervical spine. Now you can learn to adapt to that and more hip flexibility will allow you to retain a bit of the correct lumber carve but you still get the hyperflexion of the cervical curve. Adapting to that position thos will lead to invreased risk of lumbar spinal injury and muscle adaptation that is not at all good for you

If you race then the spinal risk is worth it for the areo but its inherently less comfortable and puts your back under such stress its going to increase your risk of long term damage significantly

TBF though, I’ve just looked at the imagine again and it is quite an extreme example. It looks like he’s going downhill, he probably doesn’t ride with a back like that on level piece of road. The image was intended to illustrate the point about position I was trying to make.

Maybe it’s an age thing. I can ride quite happily all day with a good drop between saddle and bar and no problem in the drops. Mind you, I’m only 60 next year.

While I’d certainly agree that flat bars have some advantages (and my own commuter has flat bars) I’ve certainly found drop bars the most comfortable option for longer rides. My old Roubaix is about as comfortable as a bike can get, and my setup has the saddle barely higher than the bars:

Maybe it’s because my weight is taken by my stomach on the top tube?

My Amazon (tourer/cx/grrrravel) is quite a bit more upright than my Cube Agree.

Not the best shot, but it’ll give an idea.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/SSY8sU]DSC_0549[/url] by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

Not as extreme as DTFs example.

What a super fit cyclist/racer rides, and their position on the bike, is not necessarily what is best for everyone else. I would also be wary of making any assumptions about how comfortable a bike the Mason Definition is based purely on Josh Ibbett winning the TCR on it. Professional and sponsored riders ride what they are given/paid to ride: it’s all part of the marketing to persuade MAMILs to buy those bikes.

I guess we are all coming at this based on our own personal experiences and preconceptions (including me: age and less flexibility means that, like the OP, I find it more comfortable with my hands on the flats of drop bars or behind the hoods rather than on them, and I am going to have to take my own advice and start switching to shorter stems). David Taylforth, I think you are relatively young, fit and flexible, and all I can say is prolong it for as long as you can and enjoy it while it lasts. As you say, the riders in the photograph I posted are old and (maybe) unfit, but crucially they are still riding and enjoying it, and they are probably not complaining on an internet forum that they cannot get comfortable on their bikes.

I don’t think that’s true: you can find photographs of riders such as Coppi, Merckx etc. etc. on the hoods.

I would not expect anyone on that sort of descent to have their hands on the hoods. What I am talking about is relative though: rotating the levers back a matter of millimetres on the bars may make a significant difference to hand position and support/comfort, providing of course that it is still possible for the fingers to reach the brake levers comfortably when in the drops.

What I have found frustrating with modern Ergolevers and STI shifters, is that they seem to be designed such that it is often not possible to rotate the levers even slightly back, depending upon the curves of the bars, presumably because the large flat surface on the top of those levers is intended only ever to be horizontal. An old style brake lever however could be rotated up or down the curve to fine tune the rider’s position on the hoods. I don’t think this is just me: when the second iteration of the Ergolever was introduced, there were reports that a number of pros stuck with the older shape, which meant their mechanics had to dismantle the older levers and rebuild them with the new internals.

Both my road bikes are flat bars, with bar ends. 46cm wide.

Never rated drops. Historical accident is how I see them.

The ergonomics of a bike are up to you. Look at MTBs FFS – see how the bars and geo and width and stems etc. have changed over time. Nothing is fixed, unless you think it’s fine, or think it’s not really fine but just adapt to it anyway. Which is fine.

I thought it was a useful example. But look at any other drop bar bicycle (apart from ones posted on this forum); they’re setup with the saddle higher than the bars.

I think the OP has two options; set his bike up properly like I suggested, and benefit from increased comfort/handling/aerodynamics. Or fit a shorter stem and some more spacers; in which case he may aswell buy a shopping bike.

Nope – I understand the physiology and biomechanics of the back

Multiple hand positions, being able to get upper body lower on fast flat sections, when on hoods arms in natural position (i.e. same as they are when resting arms by your side)

Or could injure him badly and affect his life forever after.

What a daft thing to say. Drop bars aren’t for everyone, just accept it.

You have reinforced my first post anyway. 🙄

Interesting, I see what you are getting at now. I must admit I am out of date on bike fit (although humans don’t change, only the science or the opinions/errors of scientists), but about 15-20 years or so ago I think many coaches were advocating rotating the hips forward to get a better aero position, at which point there was a backlash and some studies pointed out that this was causing problems for many riders, e.g. cutting off blood flow to the penis/penile numbness etc. I don’t know what the current state of the science is: a quick google seems to suggest some bike fit advisors are still recommending it, but that others advise against it, e.g. this article on Cervelo’s website on the wider issue of saddle fit etc. mentions similar.

It’s probably the case that there is no absolute right or wrong answer as to whether rotating the hips and pelvis is a good or bad thing, and what will suit one person will not suit another, but I think its use was more associated with the triathlon/time trial side of the sport, i.e. sacrificing comfort to maximise aerodynamics and speed for relatively short distance/durations events.

At the end of the day, we are speculating about the cause of the OP’s problems, and it’s probably impossible to be confident of diagnosing them correctly remotely: all we can do is offer suggestions (some even conflicting) and it’s up to the OP whether he tries any of them, although it sounds like money spent on a high quality bike fit session would be worth while, even if he decides to go with flat bars, i.e. to get at the root of the problem and better understand his own body (what should work for him, and what won’t – as opposed to having spent 10 years peservering with something which might possibly be very easily remedied, and improve riding pleasure and performance hugely).

My own background is coming from the touring side of cycling, and the difference between very fit and fast hard riders and ordinary riders was not the position on the bike: everyone had a similar set up: the fast riders went faster because they were fitter (heart, lungs and legs), and if they needed to get more aerodynamic, they just switched from the hoods to the drops. There were none of the complaints that are so common today about being unable to get comfortable on a bike, and specialist bike fitting was pretty much unheard of. It’s a debatable point whether we were ignorant of the potential performance gains we could have made by changing bike set up, or whether many modern riders are guilty of putting too much focus on improving performance by choosing a fundamentally uncomfortable position (e.g. ‘slam that stem’).

If you’ve come to road riding from an MTB background, I can understand how you might automatically seek to copy the position and set up of the pro road racers, but it might be better to start with a much more relaxed/comfortable position, and improve basic fitness and speed in that position, before experimenting with a more aggressive position.

I don’t disagree with your opinion here, but it is coloured by your bias towards fast. I suspect what you call a roadbike is what I’d call a racing bike.

The advantage I see in dropbars in what I call a roadbike is the ability to have a few different positions on a long day. For example, if I’m riding into a headwind when I’m heading west, which can be 30-40 miles, then being able to get down and lower my frontal area is good>

However I far prefer to be sitting up looking at the scenery. I am not a fast rider and have no ambitions to be fast or racey, but I’m still quite at ease knocking out 100-140 mile days. If there was no such thing as a headwind I’d just use a one position bar.

A high front end on a roadbike is only a problem if it has the wrong geometry for that set up.

Interesting videos, but a bike shop owner(?) and a couple of seemingly unimpressive amateur/novice riders are not good evidence for the correctness of the hip tilt approach.

Compare with the positions of road racers of the last couple of generations:

Armstrong

A couple of his bikes

On the drops

Time trial position

Greg Lemond

Descending. To get low, his elbows are bent at 90 degrees. He also used a very deep drop bar (Cinelli model 66 aka ‘Eddy Merckx’ I think), together with the traditional curve and quill stem which put the flats higher than the brake levers, that gave a lot of variation in position.

In the drops with Fignon

The 1989 TDF time trial position

More recently

Pantani

One of his bikes. He was quite short, but even so not much of a saddle to bars drop.

MrSmith wins the internet.

Position is personal. Plenty of road riders have straight backs, so while it’s not for everyone, to write it off is silly.

DTF is definitely trolling

hmm, just tried that Competitive Cyclist tool. I’m 177cm (5’10”) with an 82cm (32″) inseam. It told me to set my saddle-to-BB height at 83cm. How TF am I supposed to be able to pedal then?!