How To Hold Your Handlebars Like A Pro | GCN Pro Tips

Riding a road bike involves cycling in lots of different scenarios; different road surfaces, weather, conditions, and terrain. All of these situations require different positions on the bike and, therefore, a variety of hand positions on your handlebars. Conor's here with his top tips to keep you comfortable, aero, and safe on your road bike.

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What's your preferred hand position?

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Anyone but You (Instrumental Version) - Particle House

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[gcn]

What's your preferred hand position on the bars?

[OnajTamo]

Climbing - Tops and Hoods
Flat - Hoods and occasionally drops.
Descent - Drops
Strong wind - Drops
Most of the time - Hoods

[liambertuzzi]

GCN: How to hold your handlebars like a pro

GCN 30sec later. "Don't try to copy the pros"

[Teleken]

Just want to say thanks to Conor - I just resumed road cycling after a 35 year break from anything with drop bars. Getting on the drops after that much time off felt completely foreign to me and thus I wasn’t using them. Conor’s advice of “just use them for 5 minutes at a time” was all I needed. Headed out for an evening ride, 5 minutes on the drops later, I regained my confidence and I’m fine now. I realize it may sound silly, but 35 years is a long time. I’m grateful.

[WildOwlTV]

I really like Conor's videos and his presenting style - the right balance of fun and good quality information without too many repetitive cliche's - great stuff and always helpful - thank you GCN 👍

[PKownzthem]

Careful, Hank or Manon may use that frame to steal out of the cookie jar on the top shelf

[markcolella]

Thanks for a kind reminder about the need to be in control at all times. Certainly may prevent a mishap!

[zeblogo]

You guys are the best. And you’re absolutely shortening my learning curve. Cheers!

[lowburner]

Commuter riding on drops more or less daily for 45 years now, and never thought I needed instruction on how to hold my bars! But I enjoyed it anyway, and the outtake! 🙂 More of those, please.

[chrisraisin]

Conor speaks so well. Great enunciation.

[JollyGiant]

1:10 love Conor's impression of a bull Walrus, 10/10!!

[richardharris]

I thought I'd pass on a bit of good news, in these pandemic times, for the other oldies here. I recently watched an episode of 'The Nature of Things', hosted by 83-year-old David Suzuki, (former Prof. of genetics at UBC), on aging well. He met up with another octogenarian professor in London, UK, to discuss his research. That prof. is a cyclist, and the program featured a group of senior cyclists, (Redhill CC), and the claim was that regular exercisers like them have immune systems as healthy as typical people in their twenties. They were in their sixties, seventies and eighties. It doesn't mean that we older cyclists are immune from death by covid-19, but we have a fighting chance. :-))

[raybarber]

Thanks for that. I have rarely gone onto the drops. I've found it uncomfortable and a bit disconcerting in traffic. But after watching this video, I decided I'd try the bit at a time suggestion and ended up on the drops for most of my 35 mile ride. And it was comfortable.

[richardgawron]

Thank you for pushing out entertaining videos in spite of everything that's going on. It would have been easy to say "sorry folks, we're shut down too" and close up shop for a month. I, like many others here look forward to seeing a new video here. Thank you for continuing to deliver.

[lukechastain]

Thank you!! I am still new enough this level of information is great.

[jessicao]

Loved this tutorial. I think personally for me I have a bit of a fear from changing positions of the handlebars during a ride because my first time ever trying a drop bar I moved from the top to the lower part of the drop bar and I might have put too much weight on it too fast and it turned my wheel down into the ground. I've been afraid to try riding one ever since.

[richaw]

Nice one Conor! I'm a hoods and drops man.. Really good advice and timely reminders about safety.. not copying the pros.. too much! I used to get over the front wheel on a decent until I nearly carped it at over 80kmh.. I hit a wet patch.. hilarious outtake too mate! 😂😂👊🏻

[Retinen]

Thank you. I was trying to brake from the drops like an old man (as I am). I didn't know about the hood and braking. Nice to learn something new.

[KillersFromTheWest]

I just got my very first road bike (been into MTB for 25+ years), and this video was super informative. Love the straight to the point videos with good information.

[Johnjwalt]

Just bought my first road bike this afternoon. Until now, it’s been all mountain bikes for me but I want to see how my top speed can improve. The whole handlebar and position issues are crazy to me! This helps.