It is one thing if your road bike has all of the necessary gear for commuting, which then makes it less of a road bike, and another entirely if it is almost race ready. My roadie falls into the latter category, not that I race. So, two sided pedals? No way. Fenders? No way.

My commuter/mtb has all of these things, but is also 3x10 XT gearing that shifts with a feather touch, hand built dynamo front wheel, matching rear wheel, the fenders and a rack. Shifting on this is better than my road bike. I put V-Brakes on it, not disks, because the frame had those, and they also are one finger, light touch. All of this added up to a well performing bike that I'm more comfortable riding in the city. And to top it off, this bike LOOKS like a crappy old bike with a scratched up Trek frame from 1990. This goes a long way towards theft prevention as it doesn't draw attention to itself. Dynamo lighting falls into the category of lights that don't run out.

So a bare bones road bike vs. an all-out city bike, and the city bike is the winner for commuting. So does this mean I don't use my roadie? Of course I do, just not through am/pm rush hour traffic on Second Avenue carrying clothes for work.