Originally Posted by
Caliper
Yes! I have SRAM Rival on a set of Woodchippers, but they are made for road levers to fit on them. They are great bars, and definitely should be tried if your gravel tends more toward "drop bar mountain bike".
From my experience, my reccomentation is to set the woodchippers up with the flared end of the bar pointing downward at maybe a 30ish degree angle. It should be a comfortable place to grip while cruising the flats without your hand wanting to slide up or down the bar much. Extremely comfortable but also down and out of the wind to save energy. Definitely DO NOT set the flared part up level like is typical on road bars. You can then set up the brake levers to give you a level area across the top/hoods area but still reach the controls from the drops. I also angled the brake levers inward so that they were pointing in line with the flared part if you look down from above. Because your hands will be angling inward with the flare, this put the brake and shift levers at a very natural position.
What's really interesting about this setup recommendation is that it's a 180 from how the bars were originally designed to be used.
I'm not saying this setup is wrong at all, just commenting because it's interesting to me to see how products and style adjusts to users as time gives more a chance to try said products.
The extreme flare bars were designed to be ridden in the drops pretty much all the time, so the drops would be set level with the ground and higher up with more spacers.
But since current cyclists have a seemingly strong aversion to the drops and also because hoods are so comfortable, the bars are now often set so the ramps are more level which leaves the drops at a significant angle downward.
I'm guessing it limits how long the drops are ridden in, but makes the tops/ramps/hoods more comfortable.
Anyways, interesting how product use changes they time.