Since you say you have flare, it sounds like you don't have the Hover bar
https://www.specialized.com/us/en/hover-expert-alloy-handlebars--15mm-rise/p/156001?color=230548-156001&searchText=21017-2036 is that right? That would be one way to get stack without raising reach. If you have it, then swapping bars to a flat top would lose you stack that would have to be replaced with stem angle.
I can relate to:
getnoutside wrote: I got into the habit of wrapping hockey stick tape around foam pipe insulation on drop bars, many years ago. I am 6'5" and have hands big enough to accommodate.
I am thinking about that stem, though. The Diverge comes with Specializes Future Shock Stem. It provides a little buffer, but you can't add spacers to raise the stem... which is a problem for me.
Have you flipped your stem? They are typically installed to drop 7deg, so flipping it gets you 14 degrees higher. From compatibility comments about the future stem, I thought the Future Shock was now mated to a proprietary steerer shape that only fits the "Future Stem" on the carbon Diverge. If you have a regular, round steerer clamp area, then your LBS probably has a big box of used stems you can try to dial in stack & reach after finding the right bar. When you flip the stem up, you will lose reach, so you may need a longer stem (more if you go to a 10 or 17 degree stem). You may also find that changing to a less flared, wider top bar impacts how much reach on the stem is ideal, since either narrower or wider than arms straight ahead reduces your reach.
I am 6'1", but wide shouldered, and have a 46 cm bar on my road bike. I ditched flared bars right away because the hoods weren't wide enough, and I found the flat top, square corners of the GRX hoods extremely uncomfortable on my hands and wrists at much of an angle. Ironically, my rounded back Ultra hoods probably would have been more comfortable on flared gravel bars than GRX.
I ended up finding carbon road bars to upgrade my older Madone road bike and moved my old aluminum Bontrager road bar over (it's sadly discontinued), and am much happier. It has a semi-aero, reverse teardrop shape in the tops, so looking down on it from above, it looks nearly as wide as the clamp area ( like aero road bars with wide, flat tops). I find that if my drops are high enough to be useable for more than short durations, then the tops are too high for where I like to cruise (has absolutely nothing to do with the beer gut, nothing at all😎). I set the bar angle so the ramps form a nearly straight line with the top of the hoods and angle that line slightly up, so that there is no fore-aft pressure on my hands whether on the hoods or ramps. I double wrap extra tight Bontrager gel tape from the hoods, starting the base layer at the back edge of the hoods and ending about 1" further away from the clamp than a single layer (never put my hands there anyway) so the top layer is a single layer where it's taped.
That approach has really helped my wrist and hand issues, I just wish the GRX hoods weren't so squared off.
