Originally Posted by
Doug Fattic
I'm going to get on my soap box and say that if you are going to get some leisure riding bikes, the typical American hybrid with almost straight handlebars is not your best choice. It is what people in the US think in their minds is what is best. It has become the road version of a mountain bike - which was often ridden on the road and seldom on trails. What is more comfortable and natural to ride is "north road" handlebars like on English 3 speeds. The Dutch - which actually use bicycles constantly to ride to school and work and just to get anywhere - use M shaped handlebars for solid reasons.
I'm delighted to see I'm not the only one who finds the US flat bar hybrids (the leisure hybrids, not other interpretations) uncomfortable, squirrely-handling bastardizations.
I still maintain that they would not exist if it wasn't for bicycle companies trying to play to the dummies following the MTB trend for the "cool" factor - only to discover that looking cool meant being hunched forward, which Mr. and Ms. Cool didn't consider as part of the prize package.
As such, after giving the middle finger to producing North Road-equipped 3-speeds, one bike company (not sure who started this) got the idea in the late '90s to jack up the headtube and stem of an MTB and called it good - to which everyone followed. It took them years to figure out that they hadn't worked in fender eyelets onto those (generally) unnecessary suspension forks either, for fenders got the boot in the process as well.
Leisure/comfort hybrids are completely unnecessary, bloated, inferior interpretations of a so-called "comfort bike" that continue to convince newcomers that bicycle riding for utility or commuting cannot be an effortless activity. Their effective top tube length is also quite short and front trail often ill-suited to converting to North Roads, so many of them don't retrofit well either.
Thankfully, traditional North Road IGH bikes have begun to crop up again from some companies and the online contract job retailers, but they're often overpriced in comparison to their hybrid cousins.
-Kurt