Hi Jamie, As with so many other things, unfortunately the answer is "it depends"!
I think Will's advice re. type of bars and how to set them up is spot on. I find modern shallow-drop, relatively-short-reach handlebars to be enormously comfortable, and the best way to set up brake levers is to have them "coming out" of the top of the bars pretty evenly -- the continuous surface that Will mentioned. (Note that modern bars are really so different from bars from even 15 years ago. And bars from 25-30-40 years ago, with brake levers placed kind of on the middle of the drop portion of the bars? I have no idea how anyone got comfortable on them!) The rest really depends on the source of your discomfort. If your bike is actually appropriate for drop bars (and it seems that most "modern" Rivendells are not), try to identify what's going on... Are you uncomfortable because there is too much pressure on your hands? In my experience maybe 15% of the time it's because the bars are too low, and you're falling "onto" the bars. But I find that probably 80% of the time (and this being a Riv forum I'll probably get lectured about this) it's because the bars are too high, and what you're actually feeling is pressure coming from the handlebars onto your hands/shoulders/neck, and/or too far (in which case, while you're not falling onto the bars, you've got your body weight falling forward in a way that you can't relieve through your core or through your leg strength as you pedal). I encourage you to, as you're riding, trying to imagine where your hands *would like to be*. If you're riding along, and your back is at an angle that you're comfortable at, where would your hands be if you just let your arms extend gently out at about an 80-degree angle from your torso? Would they be higher? Lower? Closer? Further? And, if you can identify that spot, what would it take to get the handlebars into that position? A different stem? A different handlebar? A different stem/handlebar combination? Oh, also, handlebar positions depends a lot on body geometry. Pro racers whose handlebars are so very low compared to their saddles? Their back angles on the bike are not really all that different from most moderately serious recreational riders. But they tend to have really long limbs, so their bikes are set up in ways that mere mortals could never contemplate. For those of us with *relatively* short arms, we'll need the handlebars higher and closer than those with relatively longer arms. (How do you know if you have relatively short or long arms? When I sit on the ground with my legs straight out and my back perpendicular, I can't actually touch the ground with my palms. I know people that sit the same way and their arms are bent at like a 120-degree angle. Even if we're the same height, our handlebars will need to be set up completely differently in order for us to be comfortable.) No idea if that helps... Good luck! Elisabeth Sherwood Washington, DC On Monday, September 8, 2025 at 12:28:42 PM UTC-4 Jamie D. wrote: > I keep trying drop bars in various forms and fashions and can never seem > to get comfortable. Obviously this is subjective but in your experience is > higher bars with shorter reach the most comfortable? Is there a > 'goldilocks' zone? Any wisdom you could share would be greatly appreciated! -- 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 [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/dd8f96c9-76b2-4310-8a2b-9b3668febe90n%40googlegroups.com.
