J.Higgins 

I'm really liking the Jones bars, and I have two bikes with them now. I have the 710mm width with ESI extra-chunky grips. I like the long grips because its easy for me to change up my hand position up and down the long grip. When I go for the loop, its rarely for very long, so I'm not inclined to wrap them with bar tape (yet).

baldilocks

I love my Jones H loop bars.

djb

what I would add is to play around with the angle of the butterflys. I found that slight changes made for more comfortable hands, especially when riding over rough stuff with the hands on the predominant position of right at the corner area (same hand positioning as on hoods on drops, or on flat bars with bar ends using the bar ends (ish)

anyway, experiment and see what feels better, and live with them for a while and make changes on the fly.

remember too it may be hit and miss with the stem length angle etc, so good luck mucking about with that variable also.

52telecaster

+1 on the angle. i dont use butterfly bars but with any bars the angle is a big part of my comfort for long mileage days.

irwin7638

Drop bars are the socially acceptable handlebars for any rider who wants to fit in as a "cyclist." I used them for years , and tried the butterfly bars which are better but still limit the body positions available. After trying Bosco Bars on a new light touring build, I switched the drops on my touring bike to Bosco's as well. They not only provide a multitude of hand positions and prevent numbness, but also allow positions ranging from full upright semi-recumbent to a time trial like aero position. They are not socially acceptable and confound the crap out of club riders, but work a helluva lot better than drops.



Marc

djb

Cool and all, but I do feel that conservatively positioned drops are more suited to faster, downhill cornering, which I particularly enjoy.

In the end, I'd have to live with these to really know how they are.

Tandem Tom

Marc, those bars are neat! I am in the process of a sport/tourer build for my wife using a Miyata 310 mixte. So looking at some bar ideas.

BobG

I almost never use the drop section of my bars. I'm usually on the hoods or tops. But like djb I also enjoy the lower gravity and security of the drops on fast descents. With upright bars you only have your thumbs to prevent loosing grip in the event of an unexpected bump in the road. In the drop position the palms are securely lodged to the rear of the hooks. Even with a loose grip you are unlikely to lose control from a surprise jolt.

fietsbob

with a Trekking bar, the brake levers * slide on the open rear end, combined with open face stems, the tape can remain undisturbed.

*my 2 bikes with trekking bars have a grip shifter.. on each.

reaching the front bend and bending my elbows a little drops my torso down same as I'd get with drop bars, on the road bike..
Old Picture:



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Happy Feet

My experience is that I tend to play with the cockpit for a while, adding areos, adjusting width of elbow pads etc... and usually wind up redoing the bartape as a result. I finally decided to just use the inner tube idea until I get things where I like... and then I scrap it all again anyway.

My latest incarnation are drops flipped and chopped like bullhorns. After riding for a while I realized on my semi upright bike I rarely used the drops but liked the buttress of the hoods which the uptick in the flipped bar provides. At the same time I wanted to try shellacing (sp?) cork bar tape. I'll post a pic later today as I'm off to work now.

Happy Feet

No I don't think so. Road racing/cycling is way more popular in Europe and they use drop bars.

Without being political I think the US is far less accepting of different ideas and Europe tends to be more progressive as far as exploring out of the box technology. Here we feel we must use drops because that's what we use but maybe.. maybe we can bend them a little out or shorten the reach. In Europe I imagine they just chuck out the rule book for each activity and ask, what would a better bar look like? Or, what would a better IGH or generator etc... look like? They are a lot less constricted by tradition in that way. It's socially acceptable to innovate. Here, with so many things one seems to have to prove loyalty by remaining the same ie. Harley's and Ford trucks.

fantom1 

My experience is exactly the opposite. In fact, I don't think I could have a more opposite experience. Have you lived in Europe? Have you ever tried to get a European to do something in a new way? There is a reason why since WWI the U.S. has been the hotbed of most innovation.

Throughout most of Europe Americans are known for embracing the new and weird...its one of our respected characteristics. I'm not sure why, but Americans love to imagine Europe is this utopia where the beer flows like wine. while America is so terrible. Each place has its pros and cons, but in the department of embracing change, there is literally no comparison.

fantom1 

You must have a lot of hipster bike bullies where you are. Socially acceptable has nothing to do with it I don't think. Tourers normally don't give a hoot about anything but practicality by nature anyhow.

Different bars work for different people- end of story right?

If those bars really were so much better, everyone would use them. They work better for you, great. For others like me, that doesn't offer as much variability vertically and I don't like that hand position to begin with.

There are functional reasons why certain things become popular. Keep in mind bike bars have been around for at least a hundred years in various forms.

fietsbob

Product managers decide what goes on new bikes, but the Consumer is Free to change things to suit themselves.

rjl33

For me personally it is hard to beat drop bars, when properly set up, for comfort and multiple hand and body positions. I have a Fargo with Woodchippers, a Black Mountain Cycles cross frame with Cowchippers, and a fat bike with Jones Loop Bars. The keys for me with drop bars are having a bar with a shallow drop and some flare, and a bike setup that allows the handlebars to be high/even with seat. I wonder if some people that have had bad experiences with drop bars were on bikes with an aggressive riding position/handlebars too low? I like the multiple hand positions and the ability to change riding position, and the ability to get low in drops when riding against a headwind is significant. I do like the Jones Loop Bar for long fat bike rides/touring, but I did struggle for some time to get proper setup, mainly height and angle. Marc - I will admit that I would love to try a Hunqapillar with Bosco or Albatross handlebars! At this point, for long rides on mixed terrain, the Salsa Cowchipper bar is as good as it gets.

J.Higgins 

I'd like to try the woodchippers, but I just ordered a set of those Bosco bars for a build I'm doing.

Happy Feet

Well, no one said America was terrible.. only that Europe seems to embrace new technological ideas more actively at the moment. It's not a judgement. Part of it is probably that there is a huge population there of mixed cultures co mingling in a small geographic area so there are just a lot of new ideas being developed and part is a forward looking direction for solutions wherein the US seems to currently be looking back to the past in a nostalgic sense for solutions.

Sometimes designs come about for functional reasons and sometimes they don't. The well established functional design for a utility bike was the "Northwood" like bars similar to the ones in Irwin's picture. Almost all post war bikes had them. With affluence people could afford bicycles for recreation and racing and the drop bar road bike became vogue. With the bike boom people rejected the utility design as old fashioned and embraced the road design as being sporty. Now, even though in many ways the loaded touring bike is a utility design the stigma attached to utility bars remains. I just think European thinking is better at tweezing out the particular activity being asked of the bike and designing well made specific solutions. Here we seem to want to make one design fit all by bending and hammering it into a slightly different shape.

A truly innovative drop bar design would incorporate built in aero bars for example. So many people want them but still have to resort to after market patches to an old design that refuses to acknowledge that. Why? Partly it's inertia and partly there is no economic incentive.

fietsbob

I have an old set of bars 1 tube bent to be both the bullhorns and the aero bars , the market for that is small in the aftermarket, triathletes mostly..


OEM demand probably Nil.
.....................................................................
Randonneur bend drop bar, with bar end shifters , and older brake levers ,
for cantilever brakes.

Then with a R'off, adopting trekking bars, as they are 22.2 tube,

for that grip shifter, they are compatible with hydraulic MTB brakes too..




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Happy Feet

IDK. I bet you see a lot more people adding after market aeros to drop bars than you see people buying manufactured Velo Orange crazy bars. Perhaps there would be a larger market than that for manufactured drop/aeros if they were made. But they aren't because people will argue drop bars are fine the way they are, even though people wind up bolting areos onto them anyway.

Happy Feet

One or two days later but...

This allows me to use the flats, hoods and rest my arms across the bars/HB bag like aeros. I'm not entirely satisfied with the wrap job (but do like the shellac) as I added the mirror and cork afterward and the bar tape doesn't cover them neatly. I'll eventually re wrap them better. With cut off drops one package of bar tape allows me to double wrap the bars.

justMatthew

i prefer Bullhorns.. like Happy Feet posted..

veganbikes

My favorite bars which I have on two of my bikes (and should have put them on a third but got a similar but cheaper option) are the Zipp Service Course SL-70 Ergo. I like the multiple positions it provides and the comfort in the drops in the rare times I am in them and most importantly the comfort on the tops which is due in huge part to the flat top profile.

I am curious to try Thomson's Aero Road Bar which looks to be similar and might hopefully end up on their adventure bars as well.

I dig the idea of a Butterfly Trekking bar but sadly not many options for them especially not much in 31.8 in higher end options if anything. Jones Loop and Moloko would probably be my jam for a dirt/MTB tourer but not as much on road.

meyers66

Hi
Thanks for the photo. I've been interested in Jones bars on a mountain bike frame too. Good topic. I'm curious on your comparison or if they work on a touring frame or an all round bike for a 50 yo. Thanks in advance

fantom1 

I understand your opinion, but do you have any experience, data, or proof to support it?

Again, my real world experience and data point to exactly the opposite of what you are saying.

Lastly, the majority of Europe is FAR more homogeneous in terms of cultures and heritage than the majority of the U.S., especially if you consider third and fourth generations, most of which are from families that immigrated.

Happy Feet

Well it's just a loosely held opinion based on observations and not worth arguing over in the sense of trekking bars and in no way meant to be a slight. I include Canada as part of the US in this regard although for various reasons we are somewhat earlier adopters. If we look at a lot of what are perceived as NA advances they are really based on brain power and ideas brought over from Europe, which makes sense when we see CAN/US as immigrant nations. The space program being a good example primarily evolving out of German rocketry.

My first sports exposure came in climbing where I saw many new ideas out of Europe in terms of equipment and approaches. Just novel ideas that I suspect come from having so many more people involved in the same sport all bouncing off each other in a small area and trying to stand out by putting their own twist on a central theme. IN NA we have pockets of activity but are mostly too spread out to create the hot bed of activity that spawns innovation. Yosemite was one of the first areas where that did happen and climbing evolved but most of that was already happening in Europe. Ice climbing is a part of alpine climbing which was specialized as a stand alone sport. Parapenting (para sailing) as a way to descend from summits. Things like that.

I worked in the greenhouse industry and almost without exception new technology and techniques came out of Holland. This was due to their small geographic size which meant they had to maximize productivity via technology and high unskilled labour rates that drove automation. In Canada we were early adopters because of somewhat high labour rates and a harsher climate. The US has a milder climate (especially in agricultural CA), lots of farm land and relies heavily on cheap Mexican labour so the push for innovation isn't there to such a degree.

The same can be seen in the dairy and lumber industries. In those cases political ideology also plays a part. We have highly regulated industries which encourages long term growth and investment in advancing technology. The US desires a more "free market" approach which encourages undercutting of prices and uncertainty for producers so they are reluctant to invest long term when they don't know if they will be around next week. The quota system for milk (for example) allows a farmer to invest in a business that will be viable over his or her lifetime and it can also be handed down to the next generation. That encourages long term investment to become more productive and maximize profit.

Cars, electronics, furniture, fashion... if you want cheap we look to China but for innovative we look to European design. German engineering, Italian design, Swiss accuracy. Recently Asia has taken a lead as well but in NA we have become primarily consumers of other nations ideas and not producers. Look at almost any high tech device or product and ask where it comes from.

That's just what I see but it doesn't mean there aren't innovative people in NA.