Monday Musing (#33) – Flat Bar {of any rise/sweep} vs. Drop Bar Bike Selling
The first customer in the majority of new bicycle sales is still the shop* choosing rigs for their floor. That could be a massive outfit trying to select a couple of the best values or most interesting models for each price point, and use case, from, say, twenty-three bicycle brands. That could be a small single-brand store with thirty slots picking a few models of hardtails, one or two models of commuter rigs, a sprinkling of sag wagons, and one of each wheel size of kids’ bikes from a massive assortment.
It can be a deep rabbit hole to fall down when we’re talking about a bicycle brand with, say, 15+ different mountain bike hardtails below 3K with a wide assortment of builds, performance envelopes, and colour schemes. It’s easy to under-buy the best sellers and over-buy bikes that need too many spec changes for any use case. For example, stock tires on mountain {and gravel} bikes that are too sketchy, too slow, too loud, or too generally shitty are often an issue at lower price points.
Commuter bikes can be even more of a head scratcher. Is your Specialized shop going to focus on the sleek-but-simple classic CA$559 Sirrus 1.0 V-brake city bike, or the wild-looking double-diamond Sirrus 6.0 X at CA$3799? Yeah, it’s a trick question; most shops seem to be shotgun-approaching both, and everything in between, these days‽
*{Independent Bicycle Dealer (IBD) or Amorphous Vertically-Tentacled-Corporation-Owned Entity, someone is choosing the assortment.}
*{Willing to entertain arguments that this should be a 38×11-36t, but keep in mind the weight of budget-friendliest bicycle components and wire-bead tires.}
[Huge Aside]
For the purpose of this piece, I’m treating cable-actuated disc brakes like they’re an option, even though I think they’re dangerous to many users and would never choose to sell bikes with cable discs if I worked for myself {if the buck stopped with me}. Yep, rubber-pad rim brakes or hydraulic disc brakes only.
Most cable-actuated disc brakes work by a single moving pad {actuated by a cable} pushing a brake rotor over to a static pad to create clamping force. As the pads wear, it’s not simply a matter of the lever throw increasing, but critically, less braking force as the rotor has to bend further and further to hit the static pad. Even on the much rarer cable-actuated disc brakes that have both pads moving, unlike hydraulic disc brakes, there is no automatic accounting for pad wear, and the frogs being boiled often don’t notice the pads wearing.
Every bicycle mechanic I know has stories of cable-disc riders coming in with zero braking, often accompanied by tales of near-disaster. Living somewhere endowed with steep pitches, I’ve witnessed an endless number of cyclists blowing through red lights or stop signs with their levers pulled to the bars and Hitchcock-level horror on their visages. “The brakes, the brakes.”
Contrast that first with a hydraulic system, where in the vast majority of cases, pads fully worn, the metal backing plates will create a horrible metal-on-metal sound when contacting the rotors, and still create enough friction to arrest a descending bicycle. Hopefully, a racket that drives even the most maintenance-opposed cyclist to seek some serviced silence.
Contrast that also with a rubber-pad rim-brake setup. Most v-brake systems have enough throw that even once the pads are over-worn, there is still some stopping happening. They also offer the average cyclist much better visual cues for wear, both of the rims and pads. Plus, I understand that not everyone can afford a hydraulic disc-braked bike, and on a budget, a rim-braked machine is going to be cheaper to maintain.
Yeah, so. For the purposes of this piece, cable-actuated disc brakes exist. But at Cycles Chez Drew-Bob, Major-Family Bicycles {Major Family-Bicycles?}, Tasty MEATcycles {I know, gross}, Hard-Tales, Poverty People Pedaling, Moist Mountain Rides, Two Tired Andrews, Bob’s Basic Bicycles, and any number of other bicycle shop names I could spitball, they do not.
[/Huge Aside]
Drop Bars & Front Derailleurs
Full disclosure, I don’t particularly like riding drop-bar bikes and don’t own one*. But it’s not that I don’t understand the benefits or where a well-fit bike with a drop bar makes sense. Massive multi-day efforts. Huge single-day rides. Riding in a pack or peloton. Anywhere that aero is a real consideration.
Anywho, very, very few shops sell curly-bar cycling properly, even though it seems most of them are happy to sell drop-bar bikes. Not that there are any laws about these things, but once you’ve experienced buying & selling drop-bar bikes the right way, it’s pretty obvious. Reinforcing clues out on the road & gravel are the number of riders on drop bars who can barely reach the hoods, never mind the drops {what’s the point of multiple hand positions if you can’t use them?}, and the number of folks riding around with saddles way too low or way too high {if your saddle height wasn’t set I’d guess no one looked at the bar or stem either?}.
*{For my steep-standing uphill commute, cruising down gravel or paved paths, and heads-up riding in traffic, a flat-bar is both more fun and makes more sense.}
I also don’t own any bikes with front derailleurs, but those, I do love. Which, I suppose, is a bit of a contradiction since, in a spiritual sense, front derailleurs serve the same purpose as drop bars.
Hacking around the North Shore and Vancouver on my ATB/Commuter/Groadie bike, I’m happy to vary my effort or cadence to cover the jump between various gears. If I were trying to spin just the right cadence to maximize my efficiency over hours of smoothish groad surfaces, then nothing beats that tightly clustered high-fidelity shifting.
Now, I know that 1x drivetrains for groad riding are all the rage. They’re certainly easier to sell, especially to new-to-gravel folks. But at the risk of being ‘that guy,’ most folks who really want a drop bar are going to be better served by a 2x drivetrain, and most folks who really want a 1x drivetrain are going to be better served by a flat bar.
Flat Bar Facts
Now, to pour a bit of gasoline on my title, of course, any shop that is properly set up to fit drop-bar bikes is also going to be equally adept at fitting flat-bar rigs for the same purpose. Do they want to? That’s a different question.
The inverse is clearly not true. It is so much faster and easier to set up flat bar bikes. Different handlebar rises, different handlebar sweeps, different handlebar widths. Bound only by the length of the cables, a plethora of different fitment adjustments are quickly, cheaply, and easily available.
And that’s not to say that a keen eye won’t notice endless riders on flat-bar groad rigs with the wrong frame size, a suboptimal stem length, or bar width, or their saddle too high or too low. But it’s much easier, much more possible, for a motivated staffer to set one of these rigs up with minimal equipment {close your eyes and cut your bars}.
It has also been my experience that individuals are significantly more able to sort themselves out fit-wise, running straight bars vs. curly ones.
Whether you prefer straight or curly, the undeniable truth of flat-bar bikes is that they deliver more machine for the same money. Brifters (brake levers + shifters) for drop bar rigs are significantly more expensive than flat bar shifters and brake levers, and they’re more time-consuming to install, both in terms of mirroring the left and right hands, and taping a bar vs. sliding on grips. Time is money, both for building the bike initially and swapping out bars as part of a proper road bike fit.
It’s enough of a difference when looking at specifications that the flat-bar bike will often have a better drivetrain for the same money. Plus, over quite a range of price points, the drop-bar rig will be on cable-actuated disc brakes, where the flat-bar will be running hydraulics.
Rove Vs. Dew
Yeah, so. Almost every bicycle brand has examples that would work here, and for much of the lineup, Dew Vs. Rove is imperfect. Aluminum vs. steel frames. Various price points. The Rove is a 1X but the Rove LTD is a 2X Etc. But the geo is pretty dang similar – at least the head tube angle (HTA) and seat tube angle (STA) are essentially the same.
But, for the purpose of highlighting my contrast, two bikes stick out to me. The well-appointed Dr Dew (CA$1700) flat-bar rig vs. the similarly priced Rove (CA$1900) with a drop-bar. Both rigs sport nice butted chromoly (4130 steel) frames and Project 2 forks. Both are rolling on 650×47 hoops and tires. Even though one’s a drop-bar rig and one’s a flat-bar rig, and the Dr Dew has a much longer rear-center, one would expect them to handle fairly similarly.
Plus, tire-dependent, either could handle commuting, gravel rides, light trails, bike-packing adventures, and all-day riding. ATB, baby.
The less expensive bike has a Shimano Deore 12spd drivetrain, basic Shimano hydraulic brakes, a decent Formula rear hub, and it even comes with full fenders!
For more money, sure, you’re going to have a curly bar and brifters, but it’s cable-actuated disc brakes, a Microshift drivetrain, no fenders, and even the crankset is downgraded. Even another CA$450 only bumps you up to cable-actuated-hydraulic brakes {hydraulic brifters are a big jump} and a worse-than-Deore Apex drivetrain.
The Point(s)
Call it a long preamble if you will, but there are a couple of points buried in all those words I punched out up above. First, until someone is spending way more than most folks drop for a commuter rig, a flat-bar bike, like a Dew, is going to deliver significantly more bang-for-buck.
Put another way, the best bicycle under 2K, for nearly any application, does not have a drop bar. And, in the rare event that it does, it most certainly has rim brakes as well as a significant drop in weight and improvement in drivetrain to go along with them.
From most shops, gravel-curious folks are going to roll out with a better-fitting, better-working, more adaptable, traffic-friendlier rig that’s easier for them to ride off-road, by staying away from the curly fried bendy bar. If they’re thinking 1X for the simplicity, then go with the simple bar setup as well.
Some of it is buyer-be-clear, and some of it is about shops sticking to what they can sell well. But no one can really afford to store duds on the floor or clear them out anymore {colour, price, or spec}, so maybe in our current economic climate it’s time to tighten up a bit?
Of course it’s not going to happen. No one wants to risk leaving dollars or cents on the counter. And it’s easy for me, who doesn’t own a shop and, admittedly, has regularly had to bend best practices, to say that it’s not worth doing if you can’t do it well. But damn, if you’re a Dew shop, sell the sh*t out of the Dew or set yourself up to fit drop-bar bikes properly.
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[BONUS ASIDE]
Went and bought a drop bar bike, and you’re pretty sure it doesn’t fit properly? Did you buy it from somewhere that put you-and-said-bike into a fitting fixture or onto a trainer and had a look at your riding? No? Chances are, you’re right. Hopefully, you at least have the right frame size.
In my experience, there are a lot of bike fitters trying to make magic. By which I mean, trying to charge a lot of money for mystic. And yeah, if you need a shorter or longer stem, or narrower or wider bar, or a different bar shape, or fresh bar tape, there are added costs involved.
But what I wanted to say here is that if you already own a drop-bar bike and want a good basic bike fit, to be sure you’re pedaling the best experience, from someone nice who’ll give it to you straight. Or, you’re shopping for a drop-bar groad rig and generally curious about the difference between sold and fit, for North-Van-adjacent folks, I always recommend my friend Matt Smith at Obsession: Bikes.
Matt doesn’t pull any rabbits out of hats, and there’s no smoke and mirrors. Sort of the min-max of having the best experience. And, non-Shore-To-Sky local, rare as he may be, if you have a dig, there’s probably a Matt-esque person fitting bikes near you.
[/BONUS ASIDE]