Quote Originally Posted by Catriona View Post
I'm sort of a have one of each type of person, but not everyone has that budget.

For a century ride, I wouldn't want to do it on anything other than a road bike, because you're working too hard on anything else and road bikes give you so many more hand positions.

I have a flat bike road bike that I use for errands/commuting.. things I don't want to leave my road bike chained up for.
Definitely not everyone can do the "have one of each"--if you can, great, but if not I think a touring bike is a good all-around bike. I just recently picked one up (used) because I was riding a hybrid and was getting annoyed with the inefficient riding position and resulting slowness but still needed to be able to carry loads when doing errands. It's definitely a step up in terms of efficiency and speed; not a super-fast bike but much nicer to ride around town and get things done. It also isn't "twitchy" like road bikes can be, which makes it nice for riding in traffic where you have to frequently look over your shoulder without swerving. I've found that I like the drop bars better than flat bars now, so don't be scared of that part. Anyway, if you just want to have one bike that does everything you might consider looking for something like that (and you could go for an older one to avoid attracting the wrong kind of attention when you have to lock it up outside).