Angle of gravel bars and brake hoods – help please

Ignoring nickc’s trolling

Mleh, you guys are no fun anymore…

these are the bars for me, so I’ll defend them with all my might

No-one here is ‘defending (a certain bar) with all their might’ (except maybe you, with your flat bar)

Giving an alternate viewpoint is a simple thing. Having different opinions on the merits of a type of handlebar is not a crime that necessitates nickc jumps up wagging his/her finger/brandishing ready-cooked cod-psychology profiles like a sparring Victorian professor 🤣

You are effectively saying that flat bars are the be all and end all for all types of riding…

… yet accusing someone who rides a wide variety of bars (for different types of bikes/riding) of doing what you are doing. You like psychology? Look up ‘projection/projecting’ 😉 Maybe have a word with that hairy fellow under your bridge 😎

because some-one has given me pause to think of another solution

Look, I love bikes and bicycling. Have been riding bikes for exactly 43 years. I customarily ride a bike everywhere that I’m able. I rather use a bike than use a car and always have. Have owned and ridden ATB bikes, mountain bikes, Audax bikes, touring bikes, recumbent bike, recumbent trike, chopper bike, hybrid bikes, frankenbikes, Dutch bikes, folding-bikes, foot-bikes, shopping bikes, cargo bikes. On these bikes I use/continue to use all manner of bars. Flat bars (wide and narrow) with and without bar-ends (long and short), ‘loop‘ bars, trekking-bars, butterly-bars, high sweep ‘dutch’ bars, ‘cowhorns’, drop bars (narrow, wide, flared, deep, shallow), TT bars, ‘moustache’ bars, inverted bars.

Am like a weird train-collector of bikes and handlebar, yet whatever feels the best for me has been effectively filtered over the decades and I’ve arrived at a few favourites (yet still trying new designs just to see) that yet still are subject to whimsy or changing requirements. ie recent years I’ve a recurring injury so cannot do much seated climbing. This unplanned situation has necessarily changed my cycling configurations again in order to keep active. Am also a little, ok a lot, obsessive about getting the right fit and optimal comfort.

But you’re ‘giving me pause‘ to think of ‘one solution’? I already keep four ‘solutions’ on three bikes. How can I be less dogmatic? Variety is the spice of bikes!

Even my one bike (retro tourer) that has drops fitted also nonethless gets the occasional switcheroo to upright old-school narrow touring bars, depending on what kind of summer I’m having and/or because I like the change. I also like to fit new bar tape from time to time. It’s a ‘faff’ that I really enjoy. Great satisfaction to do a good job of it. I plan ahead, book it in, then spend a good few hours with a few cold beers and the radio on in the studio. Wrapping the bars. Cabling the brakes. Every couple of years. It’s nice. See also the dismantling and meticulous cleaning of jockey-wheels and cassettes. I love that!

We’re not so much a weird ‘group’, we’re all different individual weirdos. It’s OK to have different opinions and find different benefits in different pursuits, even under the same wide umbrella. It really is 👍🏼 well, I think that it is.

Bikes are ace. Cycling is ace.

Ah, who am I kidding? You got me. I only pretend to like drop-bars because I can fit an expensive French bar-bag between the hoods which is also supported from below by a sweet little randonneur rack*

*Actually not true, I use a nylon rack pack on the rear, same one for 20 years.

But you got a little bit excited at thinking you’d ‘busted’ a vapid poseur, dintcha! 😂

Now I’ve gotten myself again wanting very much to mirror-polish some vintage aluminium. Another thread unravels.

*edit –

A few bars/configs I’ve tried on different ATB/tourer projects over the last decade or so

Joking apart, Nick maybe you can solve a problem I haven’t yet identified? Here’s the situation.

I couldn’t really choose ‘just one’ bar as there is offroad and on-road and in-between. I still find the ‘pistol-grip’ on the hoods just right for lots of road work and winch/plummet in hilly country (most of my riding) as it rotates the arm inboard and recruits different muscle groups. Feels so much better than palm-down position when heaving uphill on the flat bars, and also allows you to get your body over the bars on roads/fireroads going up >8%

Bar-ends can give a very similar position to hoods, yet minus the brake-ability and the added ‘shoulder’ grip position on drops (the bit behind the hoods) which gets me a little more upright even than on the hoods. Again, plenty of variety and ‘rest’ options over long-distance of medium/hard powering with winch and drop.

Joking apart, Nick if you have a ‘solution‘ in mind that you feel is objectively better for touring than drops then I’m nearly all ears. But I’m suspicious of ‘one size fits all’, because it seems apparent after four decades that variety is better. I’m pretty sure the only distinctly different bar/s that I haven’t tried would be the KOGA Denham/H-bar/Velo Orange Krazy bars variants. I’ve thought a lot about those recently, out of curiosity. But they are expensive to try out. It never ends! You’ve hit paydirt with me mate.p 🤪🤣

Now *that’s* taking the bait 🙂

^ 🤣

👍🏼 is mind-food for the boring brunch. also like babbling endlessly about bicycles. I love handlebars though. And another coffee.

I have to say that while I’ve pretty much settled on Compact drops for most of my bikes I’ve been “flared drop curious” on and off but I’ve shied away from buying any for fear that I’d get caught up trying to figure out what sort of inward angle I’d have to tweak my levers to…

I now find myself trying to equip a SS CX build at the minute, and the spares bin has yielded some deeper drop “ergo” bars that I’m not really that keen on… Is now the time to experiment with flared drops?

Anyone care to try and sell me the relative merits of Flared Vs Ergo Vs Compact for a CX bike… (Not bothered about flats though)

Flared drops is personal thing. On the paper they are giving additional leverage whilst negotiating rough stuff, especially at speed.

From my personal experience I had very, very short stint with standard drop bars and went for flared quite early in my drop bared life.

Midge, Digest, Funn G-Wide and VentureMAX recently.

In the meantime I had few tries with standard and compact drop bars and frankly I cant use them anymore. Even at 440-460mm they are feeling too narrow, insecure and twitchy.

All down to personal preferences…

Cheers!
I.

Bike looks too big. I think you want lower controls but closer to you, hence you have rotated them back. Do you have any bend in your elbows when on the hoods? you should have about 15 degrees, not locked. That’s a test of reach. Normally I’d swap to a shorter stem, but your stem is pretty short already.

Hi Tired, nah, if anything even the biggest bikes are too small for me – me being stiff and fat is more likely the issue.

However – update!

I did rotate the bars a clockwise again about 5 degrees, reduced the reach on the brake levers, and fitted a 170mm dropper (I had one brand x spare, so its a straight swap, and, you know, why not!)

The former now gives me a quite marvellous feeling perch for powering onwards (lovely feeling gripping the hoods, tucking the elbows in and cranking it).

The brake lever tweak now means the drops (or rather, the ‘hooks’ as I believe it is called) are being more often used.

The dropper combined with more confidence in the drops/hooks means that descents are now riotous fun!

Cheers all, extremely helpful.