Quote Originally Posted by Antaresia View Post
One difference between beater & soma is that beater, being a single speed, has small hoods. On the Soma, I keep wanting to pull my hands back off the hoods, which might be because they're too fat for my hands.
Crazy, crazy idea here: What if you put bar end shifters on it so you could use hoods similar to the ones you like on your SS?

I had a similar feeling with the stock hoods on my Cross Check-- they were too wide for the space between my thumb/first finger and my hands never felt comfortable on them. Since it already had bar ends, I just swapped the levers for an old set of Shimano's that I had kicking around and voila, problem solved. I've never ridden brifters, so maybe I don't know what I'm missing, but the bar ends are easy (probably a bit easier than the d/t shifters on my roadie).