How to choose the right bike for cycling to work — what's the best bike for commuting duties?

cyclisto wrote:

flat bars is all wrong to me unless it is a difficult off road path. Apart from them being much less comfortable compared with drop/bullhorn bars, in roads shared with cars, they have a huge disadvantage, as they are significantly wider, creating additional risk of collision.

This is just nonsense. I don't actually own any flat bar bikes at the moment but I've had lots for both commuting and touring and they are unquestionably easier on the back and wrists than drop bars. They are also easier to control in most situations. The flat bars on the FX here are 600 mm wide compared to 420 mm for the drop bars on a Domane, so 90 mm wider on each side, not what I would call a "huge disadvantage" unless you are regularly missing collisions by less than 9 cm, in which case you might want to have a look at your roadcraft. Additionally when you're on the hoods for braking on a drop bar bike your hands are outside the width of the bars, unlike with a flat bar, so you probably add an extra 60-70 mm to your width each side anyway. Saying that flat bars are much less comfortable than drops and have a huge disadvantage because they create an additional risk of collision is simply wrong.

Rendel Harris wrote:

cyclisto wrote:

flat bars is all wrong to me unless it is a difficult off road path. Apart from them being much less comfortable compared with drop/bullhorn bars, in roads shared with cars, they have a huge disadvantage, as they are significantly wider, creating additional risk of collision.

This is just nonsense. I don't actually own any flat bar bikes at the moment but I've had lots for both commuting and touring and they are unquestionably easier on the back and wrists than drop bars. They are also easier to control in most situations. The flat bars on the FX here are 600 mm wide compared to 420 mm for the drop bars on a Domane, so 90 mm wider on each side, not what I would call a "huge disadvantage" unless you are regularly missing collisions by less than 9 cm, in which case you might want to have a look at your roadcraft. Additionally when you're on the hoods for braking on a drop bar bike your hands are outside the width of the bars, unlike with a flat bar, so you probably add an extra 60-70 mm to your width each side anyway. Saying that flat bars are much less comfortable than drops and have a huge disadvantage because they create an additional risk of collision is simply wrong.

A synthesis of this flat bar thesis and antithesis is required!

Personally I've had half a dozen flat-bar bikes over the decades, 4 of which needed the ridiculously wide bars shortened to be both comfortable and less likely to catch on every bluddy thing they got near - when used on roads.

So shorter flat bars seem appropriate for in-traffic commuter bikes that don't need a large riving-couple to suddenly steer clear of boulders, ruts and fallen trees, as with an MTB.

Flat bars do tend to have only one position in which the hands and wrists must remain, which certainly makes my hands and wrists ache over anything more than 5 miles. If they offer other advantages then those who find the single position of flat bars irksome can add some bar-ends or other extensions to enable a change of hand position to alleviate hand/wrist aches, as I have with one ex-MTB set up for the road.

In practice, drop bars can be got in all sorts of shapes, with many different angles of the parts, thicknesses of the bar and so forth. They can even emulate (narrow) flat bars if you add "sissy" brake levers to the bar tops, as I have on one cyclo-cross bike. On the other hand, I haven't used the drop part  of drop bars when riding, for years, other than as a means to mount bar-end mirrors.

The degree of one's forward lean is easily altered with stem angles & lengths and/or spacers on the steering column tops. Nothing about flat bars automatically makes you sit up more on the bike, as forward lean is due to all sorts of other factors besides the bar shape.

At bottom, it comes down to the usual, though. Different bar shapes suit different requirements of people with various bodily configurations and tolerances. As I get older and stiffer, some of my handlebars look far from those positions and configs specified by The Rules or other silly fashion styles for bike configs referenced by faux racers and similar fashion victims.

************

Here's an interesting article that tends to the Rendel view. What do others think?

https://www.cyclingabout.com/flat-bars-are-objectively-better-than-drops/

Cugel wrote:

A synthesis of this flat bar thesis and antithesis is required!

You mean, like these...?

Interesting, I prefer flat bar for a commuter/hybrid bike because you tend to sit more upright on those bikes, which I feel at least gives me a better overall view of the traffic situation.

Width doesn't make the difference, I'm running with panniers, if the handlebars won't fit a gap, the pannier certainly won't because it sits wider, something I often forget when filtering.

Regarding flat bars being easier on back and wrists, you may make an unfair comparison. Dropbar bikes may seem hard on back and wrists, but it is because the unreasonably great majority of them have a too low riding position. I have ridden two flat bar bikes converted to drop before and after (with shorter stems) and the result was very pleasurable. It is just the industry that hasn't understood it yet.

About width, actually in my size bar width is 660mm in Trek FX https://www.trekbikes.com/gb/en_GB/bikes/hybrid-bikes/fitness-bikes/fx/f...

compared to my drop bars 44c-c+2*1cm the two bar radius + 2*~3cm per hand=52cm total width so a 66cm handlebar (maybe the grip covers add 1cm or two) will mean more than 20% increase in width. Imagine a bike now that is 10kg and another is 12kg. It is quite important, and I actively felt it when in heavy traffic (that in general I avoid).

I started commuting on a cheap flat bar, then replaced it with a less cheap (although still <£500) drop bar. The two bikes were very different and I far prefer the drop bar.

Comfort - I am happy on either, but I can see how a flat bar would be easier to get into a comfortable position than a drop bar, however, your forearms are twisted when using a flat bar, as opposed to a drop bar (think about how ergonomic keyboard/mice try to move your hand away from the flat position.)

I normally rest my hands on the hoods with my drop bar and don't feel like I can perform emergency braking quite as quickly as I could on the flat. With the drop bar, it feels like I need to extend my fingers and rotate my hand slightly to properly grip the brake lever. This could well be because of how I have set up my bike!

cyclisto wrote:

compared to my drop bars 44c-c+2*1cm the two bar radius + 2*~3cm per hand=52cm total width so a 66cm handlebar (maybe the grip covers add 1cm or two) will mean more than 20% increase in width.

Out of interest I've just measured how far my hand protrudes from the hood of my main road bike, at its widest point (the knuckle of the little finger) it's actually sticking out 60 mm from the bar width, meaning that there would effectively be no width difference between a 440 mm drop bar and a 660 mm flat bar. Even if there were 20 or 30 mm, do you frequently miss crashes by 20 mm on your drop bar bikes, frequently enough to claim that a negligible width difference (in my case none at all, as I say) is enough to offer a "huge disadvantage" in safety?

This seems weird, my whole little finger is 6cm, I don't really know how you measured this. If you try to spread your body, you may have a bike width up to 2m. But usually when you find two cars who decided to move closer and you are coming from behind at speed, every cm matters, so you will try to squeeze as usually elbows may extrude even more.

Couldn't hold a tape measure at the same time but you get the idea…all of my fingers are on the brake lever, you can see how much further out my hand is than the bar width. As with nearly every road bike, the levers are turned slightly inwards and are at a slight angle so the lowest part of my hand, the bottom knuckle of my little finger, sticks out most.

Incidentally unless you're a total stick insect your hips will be considerably wider than 44 cm so if a car is coming as close as you describe from behind it's going to hit your hip/thigh before it hits your bars anyway.

cyclisto wrote:

If you try to spread your body, you may have a bike width up to 2m. But usually when you find two cars who decided to move closer and you are coming from behind at speed, every cm matters, so you will try to squeeze as usually elbows may extrude even more.