Road Bike Buying Guide

What's the difference between a carbon road bike and an aero road bike? What size of road bike should I go for? Buying a new road bike involves answering a lot of questions, but this guide is going to do a lot of the work for you.

Finding which road bike is right for you means looking carefully at your budget and getting a crash course on the huge array of technical terms and component set-ups you need to understand. Do you go for an aluminium bike or a more expensive carbon bike frame? And what groupset, wheelset, and finishing kits? What even is a finishing kit?

ROAD BIKE JARGON BUSTER

If you're not familiar with terms used when talking about road bikes, here's a jargon buster to help. These terms will feature in product descriptions when you're researching your bikes, so it's a good idea to familiarise yourself with them.

• Drop bars: Drop bars are the classic racing bike u-shaped bars most commonly seen on road bikes. These bars offer a choice of riding positions: 'on the hoods', when gripping the handles on the top edge of the horizontal bars; and 'in the drops', gripping underneath the bars at the bottom of the bend. This position is often used for sprinting or getting low when descending a hill. Drop bars are by the most common on road bikes but flat bar road bike bars do exist, although they're more commonly found on commuting bikes.
• Flared bars: Flared handlebars are most often used on gravel bikes, widening the turning circle of the bars to allow for more precise steering and better control.
• Gravel bike: Gravel bikes or adventure bikes are a hybrid between a road bike and a hard-tail mountain bike, allowing you to ride off-road as well as on tarmac. Wide tyres, climb-focused gearing, and more robust frames usually also feature.
• Geometry: Bike geometry refers to the angles in the frame that affect the riding position of the bike. More upright bikes, particularly endurance bikes and gravel bikes, are better for long climbs. Those offering a low 'racing' geometry, such as time trail and aero bikes, are more suited to sprinting and outright speed.
• Finishing kit: The finishing kit usually refers to the a road bike's stem, headset, and seatpost. These are important aspects of any bike, contributing to stability and comfort.
• Touch points: These are the bits you 'touch' or are in contact with when riding, such as pedals, handlebars, bike tape and saddle.
• Groupset: The groupset refers to the bike's drivetrain - the cogs, gears, chain, and controls, like brake levers and gear levers. There are three main manufacturers, Shimano, SRAM and Campagnolo (there are others, such as Box and Microshift), each offering different benefits. Each of the main three makers offer component sets at varying levels of quality and price, arranged in what are called hierarchies. While a good groupset is important for smooth operation, they are are easily upgraded.
• Wheelset: After the frame, the wheelset probably plays the biggest role in your road bike's performance. Contributing hugely to the overall weight, stability, agility, acceleration, deceleration and overall speed. A quality wheelset should be at the top of your priorities.
• Carbon forks: Aside from featuring on carbon frames, carbon forks are also fitted to many aluminium frames for their shock absorbing abilities and lightweight construction.
• Electric road bike: An electric road bike provides battery-powered assistance while pedaling. Mostly used by commuters, leisure riders, those nursing long-term injuries, and thrill seekers, they're incredibly fun and hugely popular.
• Tube, tubeless, and tubular: Road bike wheels come in three main formats. The most common is the classic tube set-up, often called clincher, which has an inflated inner tube and exterior tyre. Tubeless tyres are sealed to the wheel rim with no inner tube, offering lots of performance benefits, such as lower tyre pressures without loss of performance. Tubular tyres are probably the least common. Mostly used by pro riders and often referred to as 'tubs ', tubular tyres look the same as clinchers on the outside but work in a very different way. The inner tube is sewn into the tyre and is essentially part of it. As a result, the tubular tyre is just one piece, whereas the clincher is two pieces (tube and tyre).

BEGINNER ROAD BIKE BUYING GUIDE