With the price of gas, I'm going to start riding to work a couple days a week. If it goes well, I'll be wanting to buy a commuting bike, and need to decide if I want a hybrid, or stick with a heavier road bike.

I currently ride a carbon fiber road bike that I love, but do not want to junk it up with a rack and I think the skinny tires are best left for my long fun rides. Plus it is too pricey a bike to leave it unattended even if locked to a rack while I use it to do errands.

I think I want ~700x35 ish tires, triple crankset, probably (?) dropped handlebars so I have more options for hand placement. The commute is 12 flat but often windy (20-35mph) miles one way with one big hill (bridge that I can barely get over right now on my ultralight road bike), soon to be 13 miles with 2 hills when the office moves. I'm thinking a rear rack to hold one of those trunk bags, and maybe eventually small panniers for groceries if I go that far with this idea. Haven't really set a price range yet - not sure what it's going to be, prob $500-1,000? Is that reasonable?

So - do I look for heavier less pricey road bike, or a hybrid? Recommendations? What features should I be looking for, questions I should be asking? What kind of bikes do you all use for commuting?