Best road bikes 2022: top reviewed bikes for every price point

A key decision when choosing the best road bike for you is what you plan to do with it. Are you looking to go fast or race, or are you after a more comfortable bike for leisurely rides or long days in the saddle?

Geometry is the key factor here. A full-on race bike will put you in a more bent-over riding position, with your head and shoulders lower down over the handlebar. That’s great when you have a need for speed, reducing your frontal profile to lower your wind resistance but can be uncomfortable, particularly for a beginner.

On the other hand, bikes labelled “endurance” or “sportive” will be designed for a more upright riding position, with the bars higher and closer to the saddle. That delivers greater comfort on longer rides, but may make you a bit slower.

If you’re riding on hilly roads, or planning a trip abroad to the Alps for example, you’ll certainly appreciate a lightweight bike. However, if you're going to spend your time riding fast on flatter terrain then aerodynamics are probably more important to you. And If you’re looking to race, the stiffer, more edgy handling of a race bike will work better than the more stable handling of an endurance machine.

An increasing number of bikes are designed to take you off the tarmac as well as letting you ride efficiently on road. A gravel bike will give you wide tires and lower gears. But many endurance or 'all-road' bikes now offer plenty of tyre clearance as well as an expansive gear range, letting you take in a wider variety of routes.

You also need to look at how much you want to spend on a bike. That’s not just the initial outlay, but the cost of replacing worn or damaged parts, the cost of servicing your bike and the cost of any upgrades. There’s a big difference in price between lower spec mechanical parts and top of the range electronic gearing.

A bike's specs will vary a lot between manufacturers, in particular, prices will be lower at direct only brands (such as Canyon and Ribble) and in-house brands (Vitus at Wiggle or Boardman at Halfords). But to give you an idea, here's a look at common specifications at various investment levels. In the interest of brevity, some bandings are wide and therefore you would expect variation within them.

£750 - £999 / $1000 - $1500

An aluminium frame and carbon fork, aluminium seatpost and handlebar/stem, shifting at Shimano Sora or Claris level, alumnium wheels. Rim brakes. 

£1000 - £1499 / $1500 - $2200

Either an aluminium frame and carbon fork at around Shimano 105 level, or a carbon frame and fork with shifting at Shimano Tiagra level. Aluminium wheels, seatpost and handlebar/stem. Disc or rim brakes. We would advise choosing rim brakes or cable-actuated disc brakes. 

£1500 - £2499 / $2200 - $3500

Carbon frame and fork with Shimano 105 (lower end of budget) or Ultegra (higher end) aluminum rims, carbon seatpost, aluminium handlebars and stem. Disc brakes should be hydraulic from this price point. 

£2500 - £3999 / $3500 - $5600

Carbon frame and fork, Shimano Ultegra or SRAM Rival AXS eTap (hydraulic if disc), carbon seatpost, aluminium bar/stem, aluminium rims 

£4000 - £5999 / $5600 - $8500

Carbon frame and fork, Shimano Ultegra Di2 or SRAM Rival / Force AXS eTap (hydraulic if disc) with aluminium wheels, or Shimano Ultegra with carbon wheels 30mm+, carbon seatpost, aluminium bars and stem

£6000 - £7999 / $8500 - $11,000

Carbon frame and fork, Shimano Ultegra Di2 or SRAM Force AXS eTap, carbon wheels 30mm+, carbon seatpost, carbon handlebar

£8000 - £9999 / $11,000 - $14,000

Carbon frame and fork, carbon wheels of 50mm+, Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 or SRAM Red AXS eTap

£10,000+ / $14,000

Accept nothing but the best of everything. Top of the range carbon frame and fork - usually utilising stiffer carbon and therefore fewer layers resulting in lower weight, carbon wheels of 50mm+, Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 or SRAM Red AXS eTap, power meter as standard 

A major difference between cheaper and more expensive bikes is their frame material. Bikes costing under £1000 are typically made of aluminium alloy, with the tubes welded together. It’s a material used in more expensive bikes too and can result in a strong, lightweight machine.

But pricier bikes are usually made of carbon fiber. The fibers give the bike strength and are embedded in a synthetic resin to hold them together. The mix of fibers used and their lay-up determine the bike’s ride feel and more expensive bikes will use more high modulus carbon fiber, which lowers the weight without reducing the bike’s strength.

Titanium is another material used in some more expensive bikes. It’s lightweight, strong and doesn’t rust or fatigue. And you can still find bikes made of the steel alloy which was the traditional framebuilding material. It’s not quite as light as other choices, but robust and gives a distinctive ride feel.

You should also look at what the bike’s fork is made of. Many bikes will have an all-carbon fork or one with carbon fork blades and an alloy steerer. This tends to absorb road bumps well for a more comfortable ride, but you can find alloy or steel forks on some lower priced bikes.

It’s important to get the right size bike. Most bikes come in a range of sizes to fit your stature and bike makers will usually publish a rider’s height range which a bike of a specific size will fit. 

You should feel comfortable seated on your bike and be able to put both feet flat on the ground when standing over the crossbar, without it touching you.

You’ll usually find more detailed frame dimensions listed too, which give you more details of how your bike will fit you. The most important are reach and stack, although they’re a bit complex to interpret. 

In general, the higher the stack number (usually shown in cm or mm) the more upright your riding position will be. If you enjoy a 'taller' riding position then look for a more generous stack height. Equally, a shorter reach will put you closer to the bars, thus in a more upright position. For the most part, race bikes will feature a lower stack height than endurance models. 

To make sure that your bike is set up correctly and to avoid the risk of injury from incorrect fit, it’s well worth getting a professional bike fit. A bike fit will cost some money but will ensure that your saddle and bars are optimally placed for efficient riding. Consider a good fit an investment.

Bike makers push their bikes’ aero credentials, especially on more expensive machines, with claims of wind tunnel testing and time saved. Time was, an aero frameset was significantly heavier than one with the traditional round tubes, but a modern aero bike can be as light as a non-aero one.

On the other hand, around 80% of the wind resistance comes from a rider, not the bike and those time savings are typically when riding at 45kph/28mph. Since wind resistance increases as the cube of speed, if you’re riding at half that, you’ll have an eighth of the drag, so all those aero features won’t make a lot of difference.

After the frame, gears are the most important thing to consider when choosing a road bike. Today many top end road bikes will come fitted with 11 and 12-speed cassettes. When paired with a double chainring this means you'll have 22 or 24 gears. Remember however that some of these gear ratios will duplicated in certain chainring/cassette combinations.

More affordable road bikes tend to come with less gears. These cassette options should range from 8-speed to 10-speed, again most often paired with a double chainset.

As for groupset brands, Shimano gearing is the most commonplace, but the other major options are SRAM and Campagnolo. Shimano’s top end groupsets, Dura-Ace, Ultegra and 105 have an 12 and 11-speed cassettes, while less expensive bikes may come with 10-speed Tiagra, 9-speed Sora or 8-speed Claris.

When choosing a new road bike it's important that you think about the gears it comes equipped with. Fortunately if you've already matched your potential bike to the kind of riding you plan on doing, there's a good chance that the gear choice will also be well-suited. 

An out-and-out race bike is likely to come with a more traditional gearing set-up, for example 53/39 tooth chainset paired with an 11-28 tooth cassette. 

However road bikes that fall into the endurance or sportive categories are likely to have a compact chainset, most likely a 50/34, and a cassette that will have 30, 32, 34 or even 36 teeth as the largest option. The lower gears will help you to both tackle steep hills with more ease and generally pedal with a higher cadence. However, this can mean larger gaps between gear ratios.

There are are other options out there too. SRAM, for example, now offers its eTap AXS groupsets with 48/35, 46/33 and 43/30t chainsets. The latter two options reflect the growing all-road, adventure and gravel market and the subsequent demand for wider gearing options.

While the majority of road groupsets are mechanical, using cables from the shift levers to change gears, there are a growing number of road bikes that now come fitted with electronic shifting, where a motor shifts the derailleurs between ratios. 

The main electronic systems are Shimano Di2, Campagnolo EPS and SRAM eTap AXS, with the latter offering 12 speeds and wireless connection to the shift levers.

There are benefits and drawbacks of both mechanical and electronic options. 

Mechanical components, such as mechs and levers, are generally cheaper and lighter than their electronic counterparts. They are also, for the most part, easier to fix when something goes wrong. 

Electronic gears benefit from reliable and repetitive shifting. There's no cable tension at play here. If you've suffered a hand injury, the ease of changing gear with the press of a button could be appealing. Electronic gears like SRAM eTAP can be personalised through an app, allowing you , for example, to shift multiple gears seamlessly. However, all this tech comes doesn't come cheap and complete road bikes fitted with electronic gears will be more expensive.

Disc brakes are taking over on road bikes and many high end machines are now disc brake only, although other bikes offer you the option to choose disc or rim brakes. There aren’t many pricier models now that only offer rim brakes.

That’s because disc brakes give you more consistent stopping, whatever the weather conditions, better modulation and greater overall stopping power. On the flip side, they’re heavier than rim brakes.

Most disc brake bikes use hydraulic calipers, although you can find mechanical disc brakes, usually on cheaper machines. Discs are creeping down the price range, but several of the most affordable bikes still come with rim brakes.

Road bike wheels are typically 700c size, although the smaller 650b size can be seen on smaller frames. Regardless of size, both are available as carbon or alloy options.

Carbon fiber rims are used on most high-end wheelsets. These rims lower weight and are often deeper, to improve aerodynamics over a shallow wheel. In fact carbon can be produced in a far greater range of shapes, allowing manufactures to create wheels optimised for a varied range of riding styles. 

Alloy rims are generally cheaper and will feature on many complete road bikes. They are usually heavier than their carbon counterparts although lightweight alloy options are available. 

Wheels are a component where bike makers often look to economize, so a budget wheelset may feature even on an expensive bike. It’s worth considering whether you’ll need to upgrade them to get the best out of your new bike. 

There was a time when tyre options for road bikes were limited by the frames they were fitted to. A 23mm tyre was commonplace. If you were lucky you might be able to squeeze a 25mm into your frame.

However, today road bikes now come with increasingly wide tires. A 25mm width is now the minimum and even race bikes often have 28mm tires, while endurance machines may go to 32mm or even more.

With wider tires it's possible to run a lower pressure for more comfort and added grip. Wider tires can mean heavier tires and slower acceleration, though this can also depend on its casing and tread pattern. In essence, you want to best match the tyre to the riding you want to do.

It's also worth checking out the clearance offered by a frame before you buy the bike. It might be that it comes specced with a 25 or 28mm tyre but actually has clearance for something wider. 

Wheels and tires are increasingly tubeless-ready too. This means that you can add sealant and dispense with the inner tubes, reducing the risk of punctures and upping grip and ride comfort even more.