Flat Bar Road Bike of The Year?

Boardman have their new Urb range out, looks awesome http://road.cc/content/tech-news/229848-boardman-unveil-new-urb-and-asr-...

Canyon also have some awesome flat bar road bikes https://www.canyon.com/en-gb/fitness/roadlite/

Totally agree though, we do need a review of the best flat bar road bikes.

I'd love a Canyon Roadlite, I have no use for one and I'm a road drop bar cyclist - but they just look so good, it'd be great for city cycling.

You might want to look at the Snowdon Paradox. 

It seems to me that you should either have a bike built for you, which could be a road bike with drops, or at least get measured by a specialist and seek their advice about the right size and geometry of the frame you buy.

My best bike was custom-made and although I'm nowhere near your height or weight, and I didn't particularly have problems before, the difference in comfort and rideability were spectacular and immediate, equating to longer and longer hours in the saddle over many more consecutive days. My own strength and stamina are now the limiting factors rather than biomechanics. The bike was also cheaper (although still expensive) than a lot of the off-the-shelf stuff reviewed here.

An additional benefit is that for each n+1 that appears in my pride, I know exactly what size to buy.

I have a friend who experienced problems for years, but bought an old bike off ebay and found miraculously that it's a perfect fit for him, and his biomechanical issues went away. 

I have also noticed that in NL there are a lot of big people riding big bikes. One of my nephews works over there. He is taller than you, but probably less than half your weight. He says it's the only place he's been where he doesn't feel like a giant. Maybe a trip over there would be beneficial.

Funny how a change of bars will get you totally ignored.

I bought an old Raleigh Mtrax thing for no reason whatsoever and changed to flat bars. No more nods and waves for me after that. What a strange lot cyclists are.

Yep, a standard road bike with flat bars, Ergon grips and Tiagra trigger shifters is a very nice way of making progress.

Bear in mind that decent hydraulic brakes are cheap for flat bars compared to drop-bar STI units, so Maybe something like a rigid-fork hybrid with discs is an option worth looking at. I have a Boardman hybrid that I've converted to drop bars, it rides really nicely (and did before with the flat bar!)

If you're riding longer distances some way of altering your hand position will be welcome, short bar ends for example.