Originally Posted by Calsun

About 20 years ago I bought a new road bike and it came with the combo brake and gear shifters. That did a great deal for my riding comfort in not having to lean down and use the levers on the downtube of the bike. I started making shifts a lot more often as it was easy to do without interrupting my cadence. It is the best bike tech advance in the past 60 years.

Consider also a taller stem to raise the bars on the bike. A bike shop can help to determine how much you can raise them. I have swapped out the factory stem on most of my bikes to get the bars where they would be most comfortable for me.