>>1459957road bike is a bike that spends most time on the road. beach cruiser, the dutchman and walmart bso are road bikes
are you seruously implying that 15 pipes can have more advanced engineering and manufacturing than half-a-car? even >muh carbon, most of the cost of that is non-automatable labor
bike's speed comes from three things- gear ratios, mechanical losses and aero
gear ratios come in all shapes and sizes from china sometimes with free shipping, pick one and enjoy your claris without shamano markup
if you really want to you can make a brompton fast in a vaccuum, as long as you have the thighs and can live with chainring scraping the ground on one side and balls on the other
losses are in bearings,wheels, tires, lubrication and frame flex
hubs will probably be the two most expensive components in your bike, even used/chink ones with bearings replaced with good reputable shit
well-built and maintained wheels transform a bike
ditto for tires, normalfags ride on those shitty marathon tires or, worse, knobbies, and think it's fine. it's not fine
ditto for pedals
ditto for chain, that's one component that's worth getting from reputable source
lube everything that moves except brakes and things that shouldn't move. in latter case refer to zipties.
suspension fork is literally built in frame flex, but beyond that fork is a non-issue. the classic "bought a bike and instantly swapped it to garbon" alu fork will work just as well for outright speed as that carbon.
frame shouldn't be neither dutchman-tier flexible nor weigh 4 kilos, good thing most bikes built since 90s have frames that fit that description
aero comes mostly from your position on the bike, which is also crucial to your comfort. as cool as aero bikes are, they are autism and a meme. do measurements and build a perfect bike for you and you only instead of relying on winter clearance specials .
with that knowledge a godbike can be built for well under 500 with used and chink parts.
