My touring/road bike is also my commuting bike--a 20 year old steel Miyata. I've even raced with it a couple of times. I leave the fenders and rack on most of the time, but take them off for most races. I left them on for one charity triathlon that was only 10 miles on the bike, so I didn't feel like dealing with taking the things off and then putting them back on. I may have stuck out a bit, but there were all kinds of bikes at that event, so I stuck out less than the woman on the banana yellow cruiser with daisies on the basket!