Different kind of drop bars than on a road bike, though: Wider and more upright sitting position.
Worth trying out at least once when looking for a new bike.

Remember that the geometry is completely different to a roadbike. You are much more upright and less bowed.
You also have many more completely different holding positions than for a classical mountain bike bar.
Most comfortable and ergonomic ride I owned so far.
Solved basically all of the hand and back pain issues I occassionally had during longer tours on classic bikes.

I know these, although they are not as common here as gravelbikes.
Kinda like watered-down Fixies optimized for urban commute.
Will not work well in more off-road (so: “gravel”) scenarios and for touring.
Different thing, I would say.

That are the ones I have seen in old movies.
Never encountered it in RL up to now, though…

Well, as the optimal number of bikes is generally accepted to be n+1 … 🤷‍♂️

What’s a normal hybrid?

You had a mountainbike with drop bars?
Unusual.

Also: Basically all gravelbikes come with disc brakes, major distinction to roadbikes.

I had a Randonneur-like bike in my youth in the 80s, which had some features common with the recent gravelbikes.

I liked it very much, so was very happy when gravelbikes became a thing 10 years ago or so.

Hybrid between roadbike and mountainbike.
Someone posted a pic of one in another comment.

I have an older one (ok, actually two…) of those:
https://www.salsacycles.com/collections/fargo

It is more on the mountainbike-y side, others are typically slightly less rugged.

For these often the journey is the destination, I think.
But also, I only know about the Dnd and Warhammer fantasy stuff like my son is involved with…
Comment was about something different, if I understood correctly.

What’s that?
Some kind of LARPing or more the tabletop thing with historical setting? Is the latter even still a thing? Only know it from old movies…

So basically a life-long midlife crisis?
😏

Damn it. So it seems like I am prototypical 40-something.

• I do own a gravelbike (they are just really fun and also very practical for commuting)
• I love our portafilter. Nicely combines my tendency to ritualistic beverage-preparing (long-time green-tea-drinker) with my wifes coffee-habits.
• I don’t do thriathlon but probably would if I could swim decently. Learning juggling and guitar-playing instead, falls in the same category.

Life can be fun, so trying to make the best of it.

I am only exhibiting that specific rational-humane dimension currently because I have the feeling, that Lemmy is too much of an left echo chamber at the moment drifting to much into extreme territory.
That doesn’t solve anything, but is part of the problem.
As is the same process on platforms like truth.social. Just the other way round.
I am actually part of what is trying to bring another (and be it just a single…) additional dimension to a currently totally one-dimensional discourse.

That sounds depressing. But you are still a strong democracy, with powerful and largely intact barriers against fascism. Yes, fight fascism. But perhaps in the democratic and humane way the Constitution envisioned.

Thought about that myself some time ago… Techno-liberal westcoast, Traditional-urban eastcoast and Religious-rural center, each a own sub-country… But I also don’t think that would be a good thing, because that would just increase the pressure on the respective minorities in each part. No, my biggest hope is that they keep their stuff together at least somewhat civilized until the Trump era is over and then manage to figure out some common grounds again…

Perhaps people draw different clues from the same events and it is good to hear them to see which options there are.
And one clue if have is that one of the reasons why things are as they are is that people are too much enclosed inside their own bubbly echo chambers nowadays.
I am not part of your bubble and yet I am talking to you. And that is a good thing.

Just consider if escalating to the next stage is the right response. You are still a democracy. Use that power. Talk to people. Normal people, not crazies on the internet. And also don’t become crazies on the internet yourself. You have a lot of leverage now with all that shit which is going on as arguments to make people reconsider.

But I have the impression that I am watching it becoming a “both sides issue” in realtime… I don’t like that.
Don’t give up your humanitarian values just because parts of the other side do.

Nothing drastic necessary, just a lot of little steps:
Step by step establishing a normal dialog again.

Something drastic would be a civil war, and that would also not unite you instantly again, but just would let you reconsider the tiny-step-by-tiny-step talking-to-each-other-thing from a different perspective again.

Please don’t choose the drastic way. Also because the rest of the world still relies on you too much (speaking as someone from outside the US)

I have to say, reading all those comments during the last two days here, I also don’t get the impression that the left are eager to unite the US again…
Please, get your shit together over there. BOTH sides.