Please drop your non-traditional drop bar opinions here

[Ben Miller]

So a while back I wrote about how my wife wanted to get her first Rivendell. She liked the look of the Platypus but had reservations about it being a "road bike." I assured her it could be a great road bike, as it is a great platform that can take on a bunch of different functions. So she was able to snag a complete Platy during the pre-sale. We discussed the alt-bar setup and I suggested she give a fair shake, but wasn't sure how she'd like the Albatross bars and friction shifting. She has really only rode drops and indexed brifters. 

Well, she's been riding the Platy for a few weeks now, and.... It's not been going well. She hates the friction barends and feels uncomfortable on the Alba's. It got to the point where she said something like "I think I hate this bike and though it's so pretty." Well now, I knew then and there the complete as-is build experiment was over. I began scheming and research bike parts to do a Platypus drop bar conversion. Paul minimotos, Nitto UI-2 SSB stem, Sim Works Wold Honey 31.8 rando bar, and Microshift R9 levers are what I settled on.

Now, I know many will be like "Drop bar Platypus?? Sacrilege! An abomination!" But I honestly think any bike can be converted to drops. And well, I prefer drops. And if it gets Stephanie to like the Platy, I've done my job.

I finished the conversion today. I really like the way it turned out. Unfortunately, although I think I nailed the stem, I think the Wild Honey bars aren't the right choice. Stephanie doesn't like the long ramps of them. She's only done a short test ride, we will go on a longer one tomorrow, but I'm guessing she'll still not like them. All her other bars are in the modern modern style of shorter ramps. I'm think the PNW Coast Bars might be a good alternative for her, but if you've got suggestions on 31.8 drop bars in silver with ~480 mm wide and decent flare, please pipe up. Bonus points for upward flare, like the rando bar style. (That's why I wanted the Wild Honey bars to work.) 

Anways, what are y'alls craziest drop bar conversions? The ones that everyone advised against and said it couldn't be done???

[Ryan Fleming]

Not sure what to suggest....but I like the look of the drop bars...just gotta find her the right ones with shorter ramp meaning less of a reach , I guess!

Meaning it's not an abomination...just needs to be tweaked for her....assuming she likes other aspects of the ride, not just the looks IMO

Good luck!

[Zachary Cannon]

They're a bit hard to find in silver now, but the Zipp XPLR 70s come to mind. They have 70 reach and 12 degrees of flare. My son and I both have liked them a lot. 

My wife, however, didn't prefer the flare. I just put Zipp Ergo 70s (in silver) with more like 4 degrees of flare and still 7-mm of reach on her bike and it's going well.

Velo Orange Nouveau Randonneur bars report 85mm of reach, but it seems short. But again 4ish degrees of flare. When held up to the Ergo 70, the reach felt similar.

Finally, Soma just announced the Gritterium made ny Nitto with 78mm of reach and 15 degrees of flare. Currently 15% off. 

The first three have a somewhat oval/flat top that I find quite agreeable. The Nitto's have classic Nitto round tubing that I visually like, but my hands don't always prefer. 

I will say that I'm quite sensitive to bar position and reach, so I tend to prefer custom bikes with shorter top tubes in order to get that measurement right. I'm 6'1.5" and need a 50-60mm stem on most old school steel ride bikes to get my fit right otherwise. 

In order to dial her fit, I'd measure the distance from the tip of her saddle to bars and maybe the back of the hoods on her most comfortable road bike and try to duplicate that position. I'd also measure drop a weighted string from the tip of her saddle and measure where that is relative to the bottom bracket and duplicate that first as a starting point. That way you're position the saddle for the optional body position relative to the cranks and not using that to adjust reach. Once you sort that out, you can aim for that on the platypus and sort out if it's really possible. 

Good luck! Zach in ABQ

[Conway Bennett]

I love drop bars and ride a drop bar hunqapillar.  I have those wild honey bars, and the reach is too long.  I had them on a large lightning bolt and had to use a analog/discord (w)right stem.  I just dry fitted the rune hilt bars to the LB and don't see myself going back to the wild honey bars.  I have the newish blue lug all road plus noodle derivative on my Monstercross which I like, but they are the opposite of rando bars in most ways.  My favorite drop bar setup is on my hunq and is the ritchey corralitos bar with a 5mm analog/discord fingerling stem.  I think the corralitos is the Goldilocks bar for riv drop bar conversions, but it's black.

[Nick A.]

I had a heck of a time on my first (and only) century, running my 2022 atlantis with 46cm Nitto Noodles and a 50mm Technomic stem. Messed up my left hand for months.

Then I replaced the bars with 44cm Soma Hwy Ones (3cm less reach) and put down more miles the following year than i had before.

The brake levers were the Tektro RRLs, and i was running friction bar cons. But it worked for me.

Nick in Falls Church VA

[Garth]

I've been using some Zipp drop bars too. XPLR 70 and an Ergo 80. I also really like the Ritchey Skyline bar, it's black but I don't care as the shape is divine, I think I like it just a bit better than the Zipp Ergo 80. I liked the outward sweep of the XLPR initially, then I didn't. The more straight Ergo series and Ritchey Skyline are just right to keep the elbows in and able to bend properly. The angled drop portion of the Ritchey took me a while to figure how to set the angle. Unlike regular drop bars, I have the angle set for climbing out of the saddle. which puts the very ends almost level. Don't let my attached photo of my Bomba fool you about the bar, it's a130mm stem and I have 44cm bars. The smaller sized Skyline has less drop and reach. see below.

In the drops the Skyline just feels so right once you figure out the angle.

D

on't be afraid to go outside the limiting boxes of "has to be silver, 25.4 bars/stems, must be Nitto, or boutique branded bars/stems, etc.".

Looking at Ben's wifes bike, it just needs some short reach bars. I stumbled upon the Zipps looking at the large variety of bars for bikepacking. https://bikepacking.com/index/gravel-bars/

Not really a fan of any of them, but they gave me an idea of possibilities I had not been aware of. Then I realized Zipp makes some others without the sweep(Ergo and even classic), and Ritchey came out with the Skyline bar, which is sized proportionately. The 44cm has 80mm reach and 125mm drop, going down to the 40mm bar has 115mm drop and 70mm reach.

https://ritcheylogic.com/bike/handlebars/comp-skyline-handlebar

[George Schick]

Those Skyline bars look a lot like the BioMax bars that they used to make. If I hadn't been told what they were I would've been tempted to think that they were BioMax.  Must be the successor product.  And I agree with you about the advantages of bars like that - they allow you set everything up to your best advantage.