I'll check out Fuji's line up, thanks!

I'm in the US, more specifically Los Angeles, California. Not sure how much I'm looking at cycling yet, would like to make a habit out of it, so we'll see, but of what I've ridden last weekend (mostly flat with a small climb), it was a lot of fun. My budget so far is max of $3K, but would like to keep it under that as much as possible. No flat bar, hybrids, mountain, track/fixed, time trail, triathlon, etc, I'm looking at specifically road bikes with drop bars I guess you can say for "racing" use, even though I'm not remotely close to racing, just something I ran ride on the road to get fast & keep up with friends, and climb as much as possible with. I guess an endurance/gran fondo and even a CX bike would fit my needs.

I've been looking at carbon frames since they're so common (and light!) on most bikes, and don't seem as expensive as I thought looking around more. As a child I remember steel and aluminum being the material of choice, but it seems like the former is either for very custom and specific needs (though looks so nice), and the latter can be rather stiff and you're unable to repair the frame if something happens....

Trek and Specialized are definitely on my list. History and heritage has quite a bit of meaning to me because of my background and interest in motorsports, and I really do like the fact that the Madone and Emonda are built in the US (but too much bike for me at the moment). Speaking of motorsport background, do more bike companies do these collaborations with auto manufacturers? Colnago/Ferrari, Specialized/McLaren, Lotus, Caterham, etc.... Would be nice if Honda built something with their motorcycle background, and Toyota with their knowledge of materials. Though it seems many, if not all these collaborations are super limited bikes for collectors, and are very expensive.