At the outset, I will say that I agree with pretty much everything said so far in this thread. I heartily agree with RIDE WHAT YOU LIKE. I will also say that I hate riding upright. I have the interesting situation in that I captain two tandems every week - once a week for Charlie Cunningham and a few times a week for my wife.
Both Charlie and my wife are disabled - each in different ways. My tandem sports Albastache bars "slammed". Charlie and Jacquie's tandem sports Bosco Bull Moose bars "up high". Every time Charlie and I go out, my backside aches. Every time my wife and I go out? Bliss. Saddles? You ask... Charlie's tandem has a Brooks C17. Mine has a Fizik Aliante. I've tried lots of saddles. Wide ones, narrow ones, soft cushy ones, hard ones, etc. The wide ones chafe my thighs. The resulting sores are worse than a sore bottom. The saddles I like best are Fizik Aliante and Berthoud Galibier. Point #1 is: Tolerating others is easy - once you find some common ground. Charlie LOVES chocolate ice cream. And Charlie is a Berkeley trained engineer who geeks out over fascinating designs. I provide both for him and we get along famously. [Charlie and I happen to be rather close in other aspects too - so not much of a stretch for me or him]. But it's easy to bond with lots of people over this kind of stuff if you focus on similarities instead of differences. Point #2 is: About thirteen years ago, I discovered when riding my drop bars, I spend 99% of the time on the top - straight section, hoods, ramps, etc. Almost never in the drops or hooks. So I tried Mustache bars. What a revelation. Then I ordered our second tandem (a Hubbuhubbuh) for my wife. No Mustache bars to be found. Tried the Albastache bars and loved them too. So if you pay attention to what you like, you may get some insight into related preferences as well. YMMV. Corwin On Friday, July 29, 2022 at 9:05:33 AM UTC-7 Wesley wrote: > I have an Albastache on an old road bike frame, and an albatross on an old > MTB all-purpose tank. The albastache is great! compared to the albatross, > it is more comfortable to grab the curve because it conforms to a natural > arm posture with the pinky lower than the index (which is opposite to the > rise on the albatross.) The albastache lacks an equivalent position to the > drops on a drop bar, but over the years I've found that I never get into > the drops, anyway. If that doesn't bother you and if your body is like > mine, then you'll find that the positions it does have are more comfortable > than their drop-bar equivalents. > -W > > On Friday, July 29, 2022 at 6:30:40 AM UTC-7 Patrick Moore wrote: > >> I entirely agree that position or fit generally is the most important >> thing in bike comfort and riding efficiently (yes, comfort is relative; but >> even a pro will ride faster if he is more comfortable than if he is more >> uncomfortable, and bad fit is probably the worst thing for comfort), and I >> agree entirely too that the entire virtue of drop bars is that they offer >> many different positions for comfort (yes, and efficiency, but believe me, >> tucked into the hooks against a 25 mph headwind in a 70-something fixed >> gear is a hell of a lot more comfortable than trying to buck that wind >> while sitting upright). >> >> But!! Tell me if I am right or wrong: I thought that the entire >> smorgasbord of the many different Rivendell upright models came about >> precisely to give more comfortable upright riding with multiple hand >> positions -- isn't this right? >> >> I've not used any non-drop Riv bar since the old Priest and original >> edition Moustache bars, but I have been tempted to try an Albastache >> precisely because **I thought** that this was an improvement in hand >> positions and therefore comfort over the old Albatross and Moustache bars. >> >> Anyone? >> >> On Thu, Jul 28, 2022 at 2:51 PM George Schick <bhi...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> .... Consider instead what Nick Payne so clearly underscores in his very >>> accurate post above about the multi-position availability that the road >>> bars offer a cyclist that upright or flat bars simply cannot. >>> >> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/47daf6dc-6cfb-456e-9d7c-18a3581231e5n%40googlegroups.com.
