>>2061822I don't think you, if you aren't experienced already, can get a real sense of "serious godamm dedicated performance road bike" in a 20 minute test ride, other than "holy shit omg omg this thing is so much fun please take my money".
Unless you plan on renting something and doing a century ride on it, which is a thing, but usually it's whatever the shop has, you can't really choose, and it's probably not going to be the bike you were thinking of getting. Pretty much anyone looking for a road-ish bike, who is coming from a MTB, who is asking the question, is going to be happier with an endurance-style or grabble bike. Yes even if you gottago fast. It's a cliche at this point but unless you're eking out marginal gains and you have a "pain cave", comfort over distance is going to make you faster over distance than lowering the aerodynamic profile of your torso. You can always find freakish examples of 80 year old boomers who actually *are* comfortable on aggressive geo bikes, of course, but that's not the norm.