Educating Peachy - Drop bar MTB’s

Peachy!

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Serious question..... (inspired by this months BotM)

Can someone please explain the thought process behind dropbars on MTBs?

I understand the following;

A. Drop bars on road bikes for aero where the required force/control is minimal on a smooth road surface. And on “gravel” bikes and wider tyre touring bikes

B. Wide straight/riser/flat bars on MTBs where maximum force/control is required on a whole range of surfaces. And on commuting/hybrid bikes

Is it a real thing putting drops on MTB’s or is it more of a compromise?

Discuss... :)
 
If Tomac hadn’t of used them they would be forever consigned to cyclocross

Silly idea like

Tioga disc wheels
USE Narrow flat bars that force your brake levers to overlap
Snowflaked wheels
U brakes by the BB
Triple chain rings
26 inch wheels
Tyres with funny tubes in them
Forks with 45mm of travel

.... bikes that actually look nice and aren’t covered in Matt paint and weight 400lbs


Just fashion Peachy ...... another passing phase in evolution
(Still an odd one that looks silly in my opinion)
 
More flexible riding and hand positions.... and saves wasting beer money on a 'Gravel Bike'.. :?
 
Re:

It's a real thing, many years ago lots of "mtb's" had drop bars.
Mtb drops are usually wider, for better control off road, flared at the drops, for the same reason, and shallower drop, so you're not hunched over like a roadie .
More hand positions, more comfort, decent level of control.
Not great for racing (but then neither were 500mm flat bars, but we used them for long enough!) Unless you're John Tomac :LOL: but for general off road riding they're pretty good.
Worth trying, you might like them!
 
You've forgotten hand positioning

Drops provide all sorts of comfy places to sit whereas MTB can be a bit limiting for some

And you can make super fast roadie off-roaders or trail stars out of bicycles

Drops also give you the option in the olden days to use bar end shifters so you could mix and match your own shifting rather than just being stuck with MTB

And they make great pre-gravel gravel bikes, here was what I was riding around 2006 for long on-off road rides



And this was basically an Exocet Missile out and about

nishiki_cascade_lets_off_road_lindsey_116.jpg


This was fun in the woods

aaaaargh_169.jpg


I was using drops on MTB as far back as 1993 for no reason other than I couldnt find a set of bars at the time :mrgreen: so made my then Karakorum into a monster cross
 

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And also dont forget that modern MTBs have very very long forks and slack rake / head tube angle which makes the front end floppy - the wheel wants to flop from side to side hence the short stems and wide wiiiide bars - which weirdly leaves some rider hunched over the bars as they are having to stretch out so far.
 
So, more for fast trail/gravel riding than for rock/root bashing?
 
OMG LGF once built bikes like THM :shock:

How many brake levers have you got on one bar :LOL:



I know Canti's need more pulling power than Discs but four levers ...are you lord Vishnu :shock:

dropped bars are getting more silly by the moment
 

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Their suitability depends massively on what you are riding:
Ride from home, (say) 40 miles of mixed bridleway, singletrack, maybe ancient moorland drove roads, plenty of climbing with tarmac joining it all up: drop bars make sense.
Put the bike in a car, drive to trail centre, lift to the top, hammer a pre-prepared trail with big jump features and carefully constructed obstacles: no way.
 
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