Originally Posted by Dave Mayer

For those newb road riders who have no sense of history and only know what current marketing feeds them, here is the optimum road bike regardless of vintage or how much you can afford:

• UCI-stickered team-level carbon frame circa 2015. Frame weighs 800 grams. Fork is 300g. Round tubing profiles, as aero is heavy. BB86.
• External cable routing. Sure, internal routing looks kewl and saves 0.01 watts, but it is a major PITA.
• Rim brakes of course, unless you are using your road bike kitted with racks and panniers for loaded camping in the rain. Discs are heavy, fussy and unnecessary.
• Low profile carbon wheels with 23mm tires pumped hard. If you are riding solo on the flats, then deeper profile rims. If you get flats daily I suppose tubeless makes sense.
• Tubulars are superior to clinchers (including tubless) in every respect, particularly rotating mass, flat resistance, flat safety, but if you are not experienced with them, it's probably too late to join the club.
• SRAM Red 10 or 11 speed, or Dura-Ace 7800 or Campy Record 10 or 11. Shifting hasn't gotten any better, plus it saves having to put out big $ to afford a 12-speed chain & cassette with superfluous gears.

Whole package: 16 pounds or less. Again, this is for fast road riding on first-world pavement, and not jumping off curbs or pounding gravel. Spending $12,000 on a 2023 road bike might get you close to these performance specs. Close but not quite.