Riser bars and saddle position

[Chris Land]

I have recently fitted some of Thorn's 'comfort' riser bars to my Nomad.  Unsurprisingly they are pretty comfortable and I am enjoying the upright riding position but I have a couple of questions:

1 - How are you supposed to set the bars?  Should the riser bits go up vertically, sweep back, or lean forward?
2 - I seem to have more weight on my backside (mostly on the sit-bones so not a huge problem).  Should I change the saddle position or will I just get used to this?

[Istanbul_Tea]

My suggestions would be to have the bars lean a bit forward past straight up & down.  Not much though.

As long as you aren't getting any discomfort from your saddle position go with it... if you do, I would then suggest tilting the front of the saddle just slightly upward.

Enjoy you new bars and the great new position they offer you!!  Personally, I think the whole drop bar thing is largely still in effect outside of the racing community because of small-minded thinking and a refusal to try new things.

[Chris Land]

Not sure I would go that far IT.  I still have drops on my audax bike and for longer rides they are the clear choice for me.  I have tried 'butterfly' bars, as well as risers with bar-ends and all have been less comfortable over distance and time than a good pair of drops.  Quite simply I think they offer the most usable range of hand-positions so you get less wrist-ache and can move around alot.  

For heavy loads, shorter rides and town riding though, the risers are definintely my choice now and I will use these for this year's tour with family and see how they work out day-on-day.

Oh, and thanks for the advice on setting up the risers.  This may, of course, make them even more comfortable (I currently have them ever so slightly swept back) and therefore push me to revise the position laid out above [:I].

[Colin]

I took delivery of a Raven Adventure Tour a few weeks ago. Since I didn't try the frame before ordering, I  chose a Humpert  120 cm adjustable stem to experiment with. The forks still have the full length steerer tube (which I'll cut eventually) and about 9 cm of spacers. Initally, I felt the steering a bit sensitive and thought it was the wide bars. Yesterday,  to gether with a slight saddle adjustment, I  dropped the stem 6 cm, angled it  20° up and tilted the bars rearward a few times, during a couple of rides; with the side effect that my VDO computer doesn't lose it's transmitter signal above 30 km/h. I saw 50 for the first time (during a descent). The bars are more controllable and comfortable. I might fit a shorter stem yet, even though the bike frame has a short  (53 cm) top tube.

[dgcrawley]

I set-up my comfort bars by taking a very thin piece of wood and bending it the way my body wants to naturally hold them whilst sat on the bike and then moved the bars around until they matched as closely as possible.

Before I did this I used to suffer quite badly from carpal-tunnel syndrome, making my left hand completely numb in the thumb and first two fingers, now I can happily ride for 8 hours over bumpy roads without a problem.