obrentharris 

It looks to me like the bars are plenty high on your new bike for you to ride the steep downhill stuff with your hands in the drops where you have the most control. I think you'll do fine.
After 35 years of riding mountain bikes I developed arthritis in my thumbs which would not let me ride flat bars. My new drop bar MTB gives up a little control at high speed but is a fine replacement otherwise.



Brent

Cyclist0108

It turns out I was better off on Slickrock Trail in Moab and on Hurricane Rim near Virgin on the rigid steel-frame drop-bar bike than I was on the 11-year-old full-suspension bike.

The short stem and long bar combo made it very hard to keep the front wheel on the ground while climbing, and the comparatively thin tires hindered things more than the suspension helped.

I think if I really knew what I was doing, I would have been better off on the FS bike. But I confirmed I still suck at mountain biking.

As an extra insult, having the third bike on the roof of my Rav4 hybrid decreased the MPG to 20 (from about 30). I put it inside on the return trip, so it is unambiguous. I guess aerodynamics is really important for fuel efficiency for highway driving. (The numbers are good, 1000 miles each way).

enveous

That is surprising. Maybe it's more of a familiarity issue having not ridden that combo recently. Or the reach on your MTB is much shorter than your drop bar bike.

Lotsa folks on properly fit bikes with short stem/wide bar combos don't have trouble with wheel loft while climbing.

Cyclist0108

Yeah, the Trek is very short-reach. It is arguably too small, certainly by today's standards. (My kid was my height when he was fitted to his bike, and it is huge by comparison.)

I just bought a Manitou Machete Comp Boost Fork from Chain Rxn for $160 for the drop-bar bike, to give me more options. (The rigid fork is suspension-adjusted.)