Originally Posted by
Metieval
you do know that it has nothing to do with braking, and has everything to do with maintaining control? meaning your hands didn't bounce off the hoods, or slide forward over the top of them.
What is with you guys and your idea that people who ride on the hoods don't have a grip on them? My hands don't bounce off the hoods because I have them in my grip...the same grip you would use on the drops. It's not like my hands can't grip the hoods because they aren't oriented properly.
Originally Posted by
Metieval
and if you have ever hit a pothole at speed on the hoods, you'd know what happens.
I've hit pot holes. Nothing happens...at least to my hands on the hoods. I've hit rocks. Nothing happens. I've ridden down some rocky trails. Again, nothing happens and in that situation I'm not about to use the drops...moves the CG too far forward and encourages endos.
Originally Posted by
Metieval
You know what happens to a load that isn't tied down when whatever it was riding on comes to an abrupt stop? even momentary, as in hitting a pot hole. the load shifts.
now apply the same thing to your hands on the hoods.
But my hands are "tied down" since I'm gripping the hoods while I push on the levers. It's kind of hard
not to grip the hoods and push on the lever to apply the brakes.
Originally Posted by
Metieval
who knows maybe you descend with a death grip? Or another possibility is that your bars are really high, and your hoods are angled up more than what would be the typical angle. Drop a picture of your bars?
Not a death grip but a grip...just like if I were riding in the drops. And, yes, my bars are angled up more than would be fashionable but that all a horizontal drop is...fashionable. There is no advantage to having them flat and, since I and most of the rest of the world ride on the hoods most of the time, it's more comfortable to have the tops more horizontal.
Just to be clear, I'm not unfamiliar with riding on the drops. I do it occasionally. I've even braked from the drops. The argument that I (or other hood riders) will somehow lose our grip applies equally...and perhaps doubly...to drops riders. To brake from the drops, I have to extend my whole hand to grab the levers. The placement of the brakes and the (average) size of my hand does not allow me to keep a grasp on the bar with my ring and little finger like I can with a mountain bike bar. My grasp of the bar is only with a hooked thumb. If I were to hit your dreaded pothole at that point, there isn't much that would keep my hand from slipping off the bar and brake. Contrast that with how I brake from the hoods. The brake lever is pulled with the three outer fingers of the hand while the index and thumb are wrapped around the hood.
It's worked for 40 years and I've
never had my hands come off the bars in a very wide variety of situations. I'm not slow when it comes to downhills and I'm not afraid that my hands won't be up to keeping me on the bike.