Buying A New Road Bike

Buying A New Road Bike

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A key decision when choosing the best road bike for you is what you plan to do with it. Are you looking to go fast or race, or are you after a more comfortable bike for leisurely rides or long days in the saddle

An increasing number of bikes are designed to take you off the tarmac as well as letting you ride efficiently on road. A gravel bike will give you wide tyres and lower gears. But many endurance or 'all-road' bikes now offer plenty of tyre clearance as well as an expansive gear range, letting you take in a wider variety of routes.

A bike's specs will vary a lot between manufacturers. In particular, prices will be lower at direct only brands (such as Canyon and Ribble) and in-house brands (Vitus at Wiggle or Boardman at Halfords). But to give you an idea, here's a look at common specifications at various investment levels. In the interest of brevity, some bandings are wide and therefore you would expect variation within them.

In general, the higher the stack number (usually shown in cm or mm) the more upright your riding position will be. If you enjoy a 'taller' riding position then look for a more generous stack height. Equally, a shorter reach will put you closer to the bars, thus in a more upright position. For the most part, race bikes will feature a lower stack height than endurance models.

After the frame, gears are the most important thing to consider when choosing a road bike. Today many top end road bikes will come fitted with 12-speed cassettes. When paired with a double chainring this means you'll have 24 gears. Remember however that some of these gear ratios will be duplicated in certain chainring/cassette combinations.

When choosing a new road bike it's important that you think about the gears it comes equipped with. Fortunately if you've already matched your potential bike to the kind of riding you plan on doing, there's a good chance that the gear choice will also be well-suited.

However road bikes that fall into the endurance or sportive categories are likely to have a compact chainset, most likely a 50/34, and a cassette that will have 30, 32, 34 or even 36 teeth as the largest option. The lower gears will help you to both tackle steep hills with more ease and generally pedal with a higher cadence. However, this can mean larger gaps between gear ratios.

There are other options out there too. SRAM, for example, now offers its eTap AXS groupsets with 48/35, 46/33 and 43/30t chainsets. Paired with its cassettes starting at 10 teeth, these give similar highest gear ratios to traditional gearing starting at 11 teeth, but greater low-end gear range for easier climbing and less need to shift between chainrings on undulating roads.

While the majority of road groupsets are mechanical, using cables from the shift levers to change gears, there are a growing number of road bikes that now come fitted with electronic shifting, where a motor shifts the derailleurs between ratios.

Electronic gears benefit from reliable shifting. There's no cable tension at play here. If you've suffered a hand injury, the ease of changing gear with the press of a button could be appealing. Electronic gearing can be personalised through an app, allowing you, for example, to shift multiple gears seamlessly. However, all this tech doesn't come cheap and complete road bikes fitted with electronic gears will be more expensive.

Most disc brake bikes use hydraulic calipers, although you can find mechanical disc brakes, usually on cheaper machines. Discs are creeping down the price range, but several of the most affordable bikes still come with rim brakes.

Carbon fibre rims are used on most of the best road bike wheelsets. These rims lower weight and are often deeper, to improve aerodynamics over a shallow wheel. In fact carbon can be produced in a far greater range of shapes, allowing manufacturers to create wheels optimised for a varied range of riding styles.

Road bike prices have seen a lot of inflation over the last few years and the top end models now often retail for over $10,000 / 10,000. We've divided this guide up into bikes priced at under $2,000 / 2,000, those priced under $5,000 / 5,000 and money no object options. But if you find those price tags hard to swallow, check out our guide to the best cheap road bikes which we've ridden.

Once you're hunkered down in the drop handlebars, the experience of speed - particularly compared to a hybrid or mountain bike - will be everything you dreamed. And with the increase in efficiency that the best road bikes provide, you'll be able to explore much further than ever before.

Michelle is a road racer who also enjoys track riding and the occasional time trial, though dabbles in off-road riding too (either on a mountain bike, or a 'gravel bike'). She is passionate about supporting grassroots women's racing and founded the women's road race team 1904rt.

Differing roads, riding styles, and body types have all led to a great deal of diversification in the modern road bike. In the simplest sense most brands have their road bike ranges divided into three key categories:

Sharing similar handling and fit with the all-round racer, the aero road bike often trades in absolute low weight for aerodynamic gain. These bikes are typically the most efficient choice on flat or rolling terrain, and typically a good option for more powerful riders. As most all-around race bikes have become increasingly more aero, the dedicated aero race bike has lost some appeal.

The modern endurance road bike aims to take the sporty nature of the All-round racer and make it more accessible, comfortable and versatile. The fit is more relaxed, the ride is often more compliant, the gearing is lower (for easier climbing), and the steering characteristics are often less nervous, too. These are road bikes for the masses.

In the simplest sense spending more will get you a higher-performing bike that is lighter, likely more aerodynamic, more durable, and perhaps even more comfortable. However, there are obvious exceptions to this, and no doubt the laws of diminishing returns play strongly in the road bike world. 781b155fdc