I too started riding again about 3 years ago at 39 years old. I chose a Specialized Vita Elite (hybrid) sicne I liked the idea of having numbers to see which gear I was riding in. I rode about 2000 miles on that bike and decided that I wanted to do metric centuries and maybe one day a full century. I traded my hybrid in on my road bike (full carbon frame). I would suggest a good local bike shop (LBS) that would be willing to trade up when and if you decide to trade for a road bike. A friend of mine rented a bike on the weekends for three weekends in a row to get "used to" riding again, she then went to the LBS and purchased a road bike because she fell in love with riding. Either way get the bike you feel confident riding.