ItsJustMe

I am in almost precisely the same situation you are.

50 years old, 180 pounds, in good shape, 5'11", had a Giant Cypress LX for 10 years, 11 mile one way commute, on rural roads in Michigan that are bumpy and cracking.

People kept trying to convince me to get a road bike, I told them to be quite because my bike and I liked each other. I looked locally and decided I was too cheap to spend that kind of money on a bike I didn't know if I would like. But after about 5 years I finally broke down and bought a road bike, a Windsor Fens from BikesDirect, for $800, which was an amount I was able to talk myself into. At LBSs I was looking at $1500 to $2000 for the same thing and I would never have talked myself into that kind of spending.

I put it together and got on the road in front of the house - and in 30 seconds knew what everyone was talking about. Best I can describe it is it's like there's no bike, it's just me flying over the road. The steering is so responsive (you will think "twitchy" when you first get on it) that you just think about where to go and you're already there. It takes a day or two to get used to, and when I ride the hybrid again, it's like riding a lumber wagon.

These days I really don't like riding the hybrid and will ride the road bike every chance I get. (The Cypress was given to a friend, I bought a dedicated winter bike, a Giant Seek 0 hybrid with IGH and hydraulic discs - weighs about the same 42 pounds, still rides like a lumber wagon, but it's what I wanted for winter).

However, I would caution - I would not buy a pure road bike again as a commuter - I would shoot for maybe a cross bike, or at least something that had the option of taking at least 32mm tires, but was as light as the road bike. My Fens weighs about 18 pounds as shipped, I've added a rack and trunk bag, water bottles, wired comp, airzound, it probably weighs 23 without the bag now. But it won't take a tire bigger than 25mm, and I pinch flat a fair amount with the roads around here being what they are. Actually for these roads, I'd probably not buy a road bike even for recreation. A 23 is OK on the front but on the back I wish I could mount maybe a 28.

If your roads are like mine, you will NOT be able to be a gutter bunny with a road bike unless you like changing tires twice a day. I learned to take the lane to a much greater extent than I did before, because I simply had no choice. Luckily most of my route is rural and there's rarely cars in both directions enough to hold up a driver more than 5 seconds or so (though there are occasionally people who refuse to wait even 5 seconds of course).

I think one of the reasons I get flats now is that I have pretty cheap tires. I bought Nashbar Premia 2 tires for something like $12 each. They roll OK and everything but they're subject to pinch flats in a bad way. I am about ready to spring $50 for a single really good tire - maybe a Marathon Premium or a Conti Grand Prix, in 25mm, just for the back. I've only gotten one front tire flat and that was probably unavoidable. The cheap tire only lasts about 1400 miles and the last 200 are flats every 40 miles or so.