Road bike or Hybrid?

[carinapir]

It sounds like you might be more ready to move to a road bike that I was when I was looking for my bike, but here are my thoughts.

I have a hybrid (a 2008 Giant FCR3) and I bought it rather than a road bike because of my budget at the time. Hybrids are generally cheaper than road bikes of similar value, though that might not be the case if you look at the high end hybrids. My FCR3 was $450 and the lowest end Giant road bike with Sora components was $650. If I was going to get a cheap bike, I figured I might as well get a cheap bike. :-) But even so, on my FCR the shifting is better than what I had before and the bike is about 23-25 lbs-ish which is plenty light for the price. I can lift the bike easily and manhandle it into the car or on to a bus bike rack.

I also chose the hybrid because I had not been riding for several years and I wasn't sure how I would handle the unfamiliar riding position, drop bars, and thin tires of a road bike. I had only ridden mountain bikes before. The tires on my hybrid are 32mm rather than the 23mm or 25mm of a road bike. So, I have much thinner tires than a mountain bike but I don’t have to obsess over balancing on very thin tires. This is probably more of a mental hurdle than anything else.

A few months after getting my hybrid I added clipless pedals and bar ends. The bar ends allow me to achieve an aerodynamic position sort of similar to that of a road bike. I can get into a crouched position, tuck my elbows, and increase my speed by a few mph. Then when I'm ready for a road bike, I hope to be more familiar with what I would like the fit to be and how to ride in that position.

So I guess the bottom line for me was that when I bought a road bike I wanted to have the money to buy a higher end road bike (minimum 105 components and carbon fork & seat stays is what I'm currently thinking) and I wanted to be prepared to make use of my investment. A road bike like I would want to get would cost about $1500-$1700. That's a lot of money for me and I didn't want to waste money on a cheap road bike when I could get a less expensive hybrid that I could train on until I had the money for a decent road bike.

Personally, I would recommend at least looking at the Giant hybrids/flat bar road bikes if you end up considering something other than a road bike. Many people like the Trek FX series but I think that the Giant geometry is more road bike and the FX. I could be totally wrong but as I compared the Giant FCR to the FX's (even the 2008s which is what I'm familiar with due to my research) the effective top tubes are longer, the seat/hand angles are bigger, the wheelbase is shorter and so is the chain stay. When I test road the FX I felt scrunched up and I immediately wanted my handlebars further out. It felt closer to being on a cruiser than a road bike. I did test a few road bikes as well so that I could approximate the feel on a hybrid.

So, this is just my experience from the researching and shopping that I did. Hope it helps.