Buying my first road bike

If it is your first road bike, then yes you need to go and look at them and try them for size, otherwise you may buy something that does not fit you and/or does not meet your expectations.

larkim wrote:

But how do you know what "fits" if you've never ridden one before? And particularly if you only really get the opportunity to try it out sat on a stand. You don't have enough experience to know what is comfortable, what feels long, short, compact, cramped, stretched. You don't know what small adjustments you might want / need to be able to make to improve things. Something might feel right in the store, but 15 miles in to a ride on the types of road where you live things might feel very different.

If I had that amount of money to burn on a new pursuit, I'd buy a bike the one I own (B'twin Triban 3), ride it for a while to get used to the "road" experience, and then take some time trying out (on the road) other bikes so that I at least had some idea of how different they felt.

I agree. It seems unwise to me to spend that sort of money on a bike if you're new to cycling. There's no need either as you can get very decent bikes for much less and you're unlikely to notice the difference between a €800 bike and a €2200 bike anyway until you've got some experience.
I really enjoyed my first bike which I got 2nd hand for about €400 (would have been about €900 new) and still ride it sometimes but when I came to buying the second one (with a similar budget to you) I knew exactly what I wanted. Had I splashed out on day one I'm pretty sure I would not have spent my money wisely!

Better to start with something more modest and get a feel for it. There is a period of adaptation for the first few months at least, when your position on the bike will change. There's no way to judge a bike by feel on day one and a fitter will have less to work with too. Besides, how sure are you that you'll actually keep it up?
In my case I started off with a high and long handlebar position that avoided neck and shoulder pain. I gradually got significantly lower and then switched to a short stem with a 20 degree drop and put on narrower bars for a more compact position. All relatively cheap modifications (bars =€25, stem =€40ish, spacers adjustments =free). When I then bought a new bike it had that dialled in position from day one without having to resort to odd stems or replacing handlebars. I got a bike that suited me. There's no way I could have enjoyed riding my current bike as a beginner. The geometry simply wouldn't be comfortable. However, even if I could have ridden it, I wouldn't have bought it because I didn't know it was what I wanted.