First road bike shopping

[north woods gal]

I highly recommend going WSD if you can find a WSD bike that meets your requirements. If nothing else, it gets you a women's saddle, at least. Sometimes gets you a narrower handlebar, too, which is important for us gals. Looking back at the many, many bikes I've owned, over the years, the ONLY bikes I've ever bought that needed no mods were WSD bikes. The best fitting, long distance, all day ride road bike I ever owned was a Trek Domane WSD. Seriously, on the MTB and fat bikes I ride, there is next to nothing in WSD bikes, so I am always tuning a new bike to get it to fit me.

Also, for all day in the saddle, I think you are way ahead with the endurance class of road bikes like the Domane WSD I had. Short and fast sprinty cyclocross or race specific bikes are fun for the first few hours, but when fatigue starts to set in, you'll be glad to be riding an endurance bike. I only ride flat bar bikes, now, so not familiar with the current market offering in drop bar bikes, but pretty sure Trek and Specialized offer WSD endurance class road bikes.