Hood setup on dirt drops

Question

I recently bought my first gravel bike (Breezer Doppler Pro), and I want to upgrade the stock bars with some flared out dirt drops. Hoods are my primary hand position, and I generally find most standard road drops to be useless. I wanted to get something with shorter reach and a shallower, flared drops to see if that helps. I've been looking at the Daija Far Bar. The naked bars look like they would be super comfortable in a lot of hand positions, but whenever I see pictures of them setup, the levers look canted so far outward that it would make for awkward feathering and shifting from the hoods position.

My question is: Is this an inevitable feature of wider flares like the Far Bar or the Salsa Woodchipper? Or is it just the way people set them up? In other words, can I setup the levers with a more nominal hood position and still be able reach them from the drops?

I'm aware that this is somewhat of a matter personal preference, but I can't seem to find a straight forward answer on any of the forums or reviews, and given the current state of things, I can't go into a shop to try different bars on for feel.

Answer 1

The shifter/brake units have to be angled outward on a flared bar, because the part of the bar where the shifters are attached is angled out. This should not affect reaching the levers when your hands are on the hoods though, because your hands will also be rotated along with the shifters. Think of super flared bars as halfway to flat bars.

If you don't like that rotated hand position, but want useful drops, perhaps look at bars with a small flare like the Salsa Cowbell or a very shallow drop.