For a bike that small, you may be waiting awhile for a used bike. If you're okay with that. I ride bikes just a tad smaller and find that road bikes are particularly difficult to come by. I just sold a WSD trek with carbon fork for about $50.00 more than the blue book value for "excellent" and more than $100.00 for "good" within about 36 hours on CL. They are hard to come by, so people rush to buy them. That was a 47 cm but you are looking at something similar that's only a bit bigger and, in my experience of buying and selling bikes on CL, I can pick up a bike for cheapish, put about 2 hours of labor in cleaning it up, replacing a chain and tires, etc. and flip it for $50-$100.00 more than I paid in about a week. They are just that hard to come by that people will spend the money and want to be the first to see it. The last two times, people drove here from out of town (STL which is 2 hours away) to look at and buy a bike.
I will say this, most of what goes into "speed" is the motor (you). I am not saying a carbon frame won't help. It probably will a bit. However, the motor is the most important thing. I now have a steel frame Surly. I did better on speed and mileage on this bike over the past week than my old road bike on the trail because the geometry is more comfortable for me and I just like the feel of it. If you like carbon bikes and you like your geometry , you will probably do better on a carbon bike just because it feels comfy. That's fine but my point is that you could do that on a less-expensive non-carbon bike or one with a carbon fork for less if you liked the geometry and had a good fit. Carbon will not miraculously improve your speed. A good fit will allow you to be fitter and that will.
And yeah, depending on the area, clubs may be easier/harder to come by. I find in this area that I prefer to ride alone or with my BF because the only groups we have are either really relaxed and quite slow or very fast and competitive. I'm somewhere between the 17mph riders and the 13mph riders (about 15-16 depending on the day) and I don't really "fit" in either ride well. However, where I used to live, the club rides seemed most suited to about 15 mph, long-haul riders that weren't competitive but just happy to be out on bikes. It just depends.
***proud Hoosier, statistics nerd, and mom to a headstrong toddler***
****one car family and loving it!****
Owned by:
Le Monstre Vert - 2013 Surly Cross-check
Chessie, Scottish Terrier
Bonzai, Catahoula Leopard Dog