Maurice Wibblington wrote:
Chums

Further to a previous post about upgrading from my initial cheap intro
to cycling with a sub £100 'mountain bike' (this a deliberate
decision), I'm popping into townat the weekend to do a bit of window
shopping - there are four cycle shops in Colchester :-)

I'm clear that what I want is to

- go faster on the country roads in north Essex (a few occasional
uphill bits, but its probably as flat as anywhere in England) and
never want to go off road on it

- no need for mudguards, panniers or any of that palaver

No mudguards = a lot of extra cleaning, unless you save the bike for those
odd days where there's no chance of rain.

-but-

I'm not too sure about assuming a bent over body position on the drop
handlebars for long periods. (In my 40s and never had a racer before).

The position needn't be terribly bent over or stretched out with drop bars.
An alternative handlebar stem may have to be fitted but you can have a lot
of the benefits of the racing bike but with a touring position.

A 'fitness bike' as described on CTC seems to be the thing I should be
looking at - a sort of racer with straight handlebars, or a 'lite'
hybrid

http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=3793

It's alll very confusing!

So what kind of bike should I be looking at? What shoulds I be looking
at in terms of

- type of bike

Racer, tourer or something in between like an "audax" bike.

- type of gears?

Derailleur, with 8+ cogs on the back.

- 2 or 3 front chainrings?

Two will do if no steep hills to climb, though you might like "compact"
double, which can take smaller rings than a standard one. But a triple is
the safe if in doubt and it will keep your options open nicely.

- very narrow wheels?

Standard road bike wheels are pretty narrow but will take a range of tyre
widths. More of a limiting factor will be the frame. Some don't safely
have room for tyres wider than 23 or 25mm -- which will be fine with a
lightweight bike on decent-to-average tarmac. Generally, if it has
mudguards (or can take mudguards) then it'll cope with wider tyres as
well -- which you'd appreciate on more broken up surfaces.

- dropped handlebars a must?

No, whatever you like. Some of the bikes with straight bars are pretty
similar to sporty bikes with drops. I think they count as what the CTC
calls "fitness bikes".

~PB