Recently I changed the bar setup on the RockHopper by lowering the touring bars and that is working quite well. The bars are in the normal touring orientation and have a drop of a bit over two inches below the saddle where the brake levers meet the grips.
i had been pondering a similar switch on the road bike. On Saturday morning I got inspired to do it, but, because of the taller frame and limits of the 150mm stems I have on hand, I had to flip the bars into the “moustache bar” orientation to get a reasonable amount of drop.
So I went with it and also used road brake levers in the moustache bar orientation. These bars are 22.2mm clamp but luckily I also have 22.2mm clamps for my Weinmann non-aero brake levers. The drop is a bit more than I want, about 3 3/4”, so I’m going to get a 150mm Control Tech stem like I have on the RockHopper and use a quill adapter. That will allow enough stem height to get the bars back to a similar 2.5” drop or so.
Even as it stands, I had two rides this weekend and no big comfort complaints. It’s just a matter of trade offs between optimal height for various sitting and standing positions.
So, yeah, I think this is good.
Otto