Originally Posted by
Altbark
vyborne, please have a look at your first post. You want to do some light touring. You want to do some off road work. You want to do group rides and you want to race. They're all different things that will be almost impossible to do well with one bike. A cyclocross bike will do a reasonable job for some of the stuff you want to do but won't do all of them well. You can race almost anything if you are a beginner but will very quickly find that the winners do ride equipment geared for the competition they enter.
+1 on the cyclocross bike.
It will do just about everything you want. I think you will want two different sets of tires, one for touring and dirt roads, another for training/racing. I think you could easily start racing on that bike, but you will find quickly that you will want/need a dedicated road bike if you get serious about the racing. Gearing will really depend on how you define "light" touring compared to what you need to race at 25-35mph for an hour. That said, I used to see a guy on the Rose Bowl ride on a mountain bike. Speeds would hit over 35mph on the back side and it would last 60-90 minutes depending on the time of year. He was in there the whole time, so it can be done. The only thing you won't want is disk brakes. They aren't legal to race on the road yet.