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Road Bikes

Road bikes prioritise efficiency and speed, making them popular choices for racing, long-distance rides, and recreational cycling on smooth surfaces. They typically come equipped with narrow tyres, drop handlebars for aerodynamic positioning, and a lightweight frame constructed from aluminium, carbon fibre, or steel. 

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Endurance.

The Giant Defy and Cannondale Synapse are designed to dominate this category.

Endurance bikes have character traits like modern SUVs; stable, comfortable, calm handling and super-grounded on fast descents.

The polar opposite of the race bikes below.

Plus, the ergonomics (the way you sit on the bike) are different too.

  • The handlebars are closer to you and they’re higher up. Your torso angle is more relaxed because you sit slightly more upright.

Endurance road bikes will appeal to riders who:

  • Aren’t as flexible and want to be as comfortable as possible.
  • Aren’t used to the handling of a road bike and want the handling to be calm and predictable.

Orbea's Orca gets a special mention because it's a endurance road bike done a little differently to the others.

You see, this is one endurance roadie that's actually fast.

Race.

Race bikes like the Giant TCR, Liv Langma (women’s) or Cannondale SuperSix which are both carbon road bikes.

Character traits of TCR, Langma and SuperSix include being extremely lightweight, fast and responsive.

They reward aggressive riders who like to play offence.

And they’re best ridden under someone who has at least a year of experience on road bikes; so some conditioning and base level fitness is required to join the TCR and SuperSix parties.

Note that Giant has 3 types of TCR:

  • TCR Advanced
  • TCR Advanced Pro
  • TCR Advanced SL

The same goes for Liv (Langma Advanced, Langma Advanced Pro and Langma Advanced SL).

And the Cannondale SuperSix has the EVO, Hi-Mod and now Lab71.

Side note:

Giant uses the word “Advanced” to indicate that this model uses a carbon frame. Don’t see Advanced? Then it’s an aluminium frame.

Aero.

Examples of aero bikes include:

These bikes have a huge engineering & design focus on minimising drag.

Their frame silhouettes consist of deep sections which also contribute to their slightly heavier weight.

These bikes are generally designed for experienced riders who are pushing hard on a typical ride.

Aero road bikes don’t know the meaning of “relaxed”.

That’s because these aero profiles only activate at higher speeds - generally very high 30km/h range.

If you ride below this average speed, well, it becomes just a heavier road bike.

The broader and deeper frame sections also transmit more vibrations.

Unlike the slimmer sections of race & endurance road bikes, coping with these extra vibrations will fatigue riders faster if you’re not conditioned.

That’s why the aero road bike is best to be your second, third or fourth bike in your journey, instead of your first.

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