Well yes, there is that.

However, couldn't you say (and I'm gonna) that all the years of effort and work that has resulted in the common standard for road bikes is more appropriate to long rides and variable terrain than say, dodging streetcar tracks and weaving through downtown gridlock? I have a handmade road bike and appreciate the nuances of its craftsmanship when riding it, but it's not the bees knees in city traffic. I have a mountain bike with slicks that I use for city errands and it performs that task an awful lot better than my road bike would. I don't know about such things (obviously) but the geometry on that bike is different from my road bike, no?

Having a road bike and an (un-fun) bike for errands in the city (which is where I live), I'd now like a bike which suited to my urban environment and which is fun (more fun than my errand bike) for toodling around on when I'm not out on a training or group ride on my road bike.

Is a track bike the best suited vehicle for the street? I dunno. I'm certainly going to be running a brake ... but that's sort of the question I am asking here. Given the geometry difference between the two bikes I've mentioned here, is the handling difference going to be huge? (I'm starting to think yes)

As always, the best evidence is to go and ride around, so I'm going to try to do that on some bikes which are similar in geometry to the ones I'm considering buying. I thought that perhaps this question had an easy (easy-ish) answer, but since it seems it doesn't, I'll go do the required legwork to figure it out.

Ta for all the responses.