Handlebar position and lever angle

One of the most frustrating experiences with past bike fits was the focus on fitting you on the hoods position only. If you find confortable reaching the handlebar with an upright position, open hip, saddle on the forward side, there's no much you can complaint to the fitter afterwards, and it's likely that you won't develop injuries by pushing hard because in that position you won't be pushing hard anyway. But this confy, upright position comes with some implications: no glute activation and poor balance with either hands or sitbones loading most of the body weight.

The relationship with the drop position is problematic at least since the torso has no space to extend and, independently of your ability to tilt the hip forward, you will feel crushed, when the reach to hoods has been shortened that much.

Finding a balance is very complex, and there are a lot of things to sort out, both with body flexibility, fit position and bike components. But anyone trying at road cycling should be able to make use of any of the three positions relatively confortable.

25/06/2020

I made a change in handlebar angle and lever angle. Before they were pointing upwards like 6-8° leaving the wrist bent. Mainly because I wrongly set up the handlebar with the ends ground leveled (or the tube end where the tape plugs are perpedicular to the ground). After reading that with compact bars the right way is to point the bar ends to the rear caliper I realise I was wrong with the lever setup also.

With the handlebar this way, I put the hoods level almost flat allowing for a straight elbow-wrist angle. This also allows me for a better brake lever reach on the drops.

Downside is that this has lenghtened the effective reach to the hoods and I feel a bit stretched. Common signal is shoulders pointing forward and upper back soreness during a ride (in my case it settles quite fast). I'm still able to have elbows somewhat bent and relaxed (at the price of closing hip angle), so probably I'll get a balanced compromise with a shorter stem + a saddle that allows me to tilt forward a bit.
Now with a 100mm in a 386 reach frame could shorten with a 90mm stem.
Current BMC handlebar reach is 75mm. So I could get 15mm of reduction with the 90mm stem and a Zipp SL handlebar (70mm reach)