Winter Training Bike / Road Bike - Whats the difference?

MartinGT

I am looking at buying a road bike. I mostly MTB but I want to increase my fitness and I get a lot more road miles in during the winter.

So, been looking and on some sites there are Winter Training / AUDAX Bikes and some are just road bikes.

Whats the difference? Is it just the fact it has mudguard mounts?

TIA

Pretre

Usually the difference is just the mudguard fixing points but a lot of people refer to a "winter" bike as one where they're not as bothered if they get it dirty in winter conditions.
There's nothing to stop you using the same bike year round, especially if it will be your only road bike- you can get various after-market mudguards that will fit any kind of bike (Crud Roadracers seem to get good reviews on here), maybe change the tyres to someting a bit more reliable (I use Conti GP400S year-round...) & make sure you clean it thoroughly each time it gets wet/dirty - road salt in the winter is not good for bike parts!

MichaelW

Winter road bikes usually have more generous tyre clearance so you can use a 28mm tyre. It is easier to thwack a water-filled pothole on a dark winter evening and the extra tyre width provides some protection.
Proper bolt-on mudguards such as ESGE are more effective than the velcro or zip-ties ones for race bikes that often go over the brakes rather than under.
Audax bikes usually have eyelets for a rear luggage rack which makes the bike much more useful for hauling commuter loads long distances and heavier shopping over short distances.

vorsprung

It is my experience that a lot of people refer to all drop bar handlebar bikes as "racing bikes"

However, us people in the know tend to call them differently. Here is my own taxonomy

For a start there are proper racing bikes ie http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bc/SBC ... cname=Road

Then there are Sportif bikes. These have a longer head tube and are more comfortable. http://www.eddymerckx.com/EMX-1

Next there are Audax bikes. Very few companies actually make these. They are designed for comfort over long distance on roads and have rack/mudguard fittings. http://www.robertscycles.com/products.html

Finally, there are Touring bikes. These are not designed to go fast. They are good at carrying huge amounts of luggage. They can travel off road to some extent
http://www.spacycles.co.uk/products.php ... b0s21p1989