Originally Posted by joey buzzard

​​​​Personally I'm a fan of the flat bars that came stock on my Xootr. When I first got the bike I thought that I'd quickly replace these with drops or bullhorns, but came to appreciate flat bar simplicity. These I realised took up less space in my small apartment. Also, it was a revelation coming from a road bike that shifters and brake levers could be so affordable when compared with brifters. I like your thinking though,.Pingus. Drops and bullhorns are usually found on bikes designed and marketed for their performance and it's my personal opinion that the Swift's excellent performance should be emphasized when plugging the bike. It has utility, but ultimately to me it's an elegantly simple machine that rides beautifully like its name implies, Swift. I guess giving the customer the option to choose their bar configuration might add expense to the bike?

I think Peter likes horizontal dropouts. It might be because he's fond of internal geared hubs? I always use a derailleur system myself. I did a lot of climbing last Friday afternoon and ended up at a spot more than 1300 meters (4000 feet+) ;higher than where I started the ride. It was cold high up on the mountain and the way I came down involved an initial steep descent of nearly a thousand meters over 8 kilometers of mostly unpaved track. My poor frozen fingers hurt and the tendons and muscles in my forearms got very sore from braking. So I'm looking forward to trying out a version of the Swift with hydraulic disc brakes. I also tend to wear out my rims fairly quickly from braking which has proven to be a pain in this new world of disrupted supply chains, etc. It took me a lot of searching to find a decent BMX rim with 28h that I could pair with a road bike hub. So thumbs up from me for discs.