>>1221365>They're most important for descending, especially technical descents. That is because you get more control...this is 100% correct.
You have a lower center of gravity when your hands on on the drops (and you're lowering your body into an aero crouch), which stabilizes the entire bike/rider combination more than if you're sitting more upright. Also you can more easily lean the *bike* while keeping your body more upright (which is how you take corners at high speed) when you're in the drops.
It may seem counter-intuitive to a new rider or a rider who is only used to flat bars, the natural human tendency when confronted with a steep descent is to *sit up*, not putting your face forward, but you're not walking or running down a steep hill, you're riding a bike down it, and the physics of that dictate that lower is better, therefore riding in the drops is correct.
>casual cyclists don't really sprint Depends on someone's definition of 'casual cyclist', really, and also someone's definition of 'sprint'.
On just about every local Fast Group Ride I go on, there's at least a few riders who are *not* in full team kit for a local team, but they're far from being the usual definition of 'filthy casuals', and they will in fact execute a proper sprint when appropriate. That being said even a casual cyclist has an occasional need to try to be a traffic signal that's just turned yellow as they entered the intersection, and the proper response in that situation is to get out of the saddle and sprint through to the other side.
