Originally Posted by
TenGrainBread
The only way the dirt drop makes sense is set up the first way you have there - with the primary position being the drops/behind the brake levers. That's where the bar is actually wide and provides leverage for off-road handling and a greater amount of stability from gripping the entire bend of the bar and not just hoods.
For sure- all that you mention makes sense to me, but I'm one who prefers use of the tops, hoods, hooks, and drops.
If someone wants the style of bar but prefers to stick to the hoods, then it seems best to angle the drops to point severely down since that let's the hoods be level.
It's an interesting adaption of design- both 'camps' making the same piece of equipment work for their style of riding.
I definitely don't want to push against the drops, which is how it would feel with the drops angles down a lot, but others seem to like that as a setup.
I've wondered if the difference is based on original dirt drop bars versus new gravel flare bars. They are different in shape(though most all these style bars are different from one another) and maybe that difference in shape is why people set them up differently?
Or maybe it's really just because some salsa blogger once mentioned years ago that he likes his bars at an angle, so that's how many set their bikes up(with even more angle) due to influence and direction?
I wish I could bend aluminum and make some killer gravel drop bars. Flat hoods, flat drops, and flare. I could steal Surly's FFF abbreviation then too.