A drop bar road bike can vary in weight from around 7 kg to 13 kg depending on the material used to make the bike and its components. Cycling News compared flat bar and drop bar bikes and suggested that 'the best road bikes are designed for fast riding and quick handling on all sorts of tarmac. For roads and cycle paths, criterium circuits and Pyrenean climbs, road bikes are a good fit'. Road bikes range from lightweight climbing bikes to aerodynamic race machines and endurance-focused frames.

 

There are a wide range of on-road capabilities for road bikes, but they are also limited to the tarmac. A carbon road bike typically will weigh in at around 7 kg. Road bikes can fall into several categories, including touring, racing and endurance. They have drop-down handlebars and more recent models have disc brakes.  Road bikes typically don't have mudguards, racks, panniers or mountain bike type suspension. Endurance bikes are designed for riders travelling long distances or riding on very bumpy surfaces such as paving. These bikes may have some form of shock absorber within the frame and or the seat pillar, but they are usually fixed devices and cannot be adjusted, but again this seems to be changing with the most recent models from some manufacturers.  

 

Unlike hybrid bikes that have three chain rings up front and up to ten gear wheels at the rear providing up to 30 gear settings, a road bike will normally have two chain rings at the front and 11 gear wheels at the rear, providing 22 gear settings.  Rather than using handlebar based levers, road bikes use dual control levers more commonly known as paddles.  Each paddle provides a combination of braking and gear changing functions.  To apply the brakes you pull the main lever towards you, where as to change rear gears you move the right hand paddle (in Australia and other countries that ride on the left side of the road) sideways to change gears up or down, and on the left side to change between the little and big cogs.

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Road bikes are also the beneficiary of technological upgrades, often starting with the models ridden by pro's and ultimately available to all riders with a premium. When I purchased my Specialized Rubaix in 2015 it came with disc brakes at time when dedicated riders were saying that they would never replace the old style wheel clamp brakes. Today just about all quality bikes come with disc brakes.  Other technological improvements have included electronic gear shifting (known as Di2 if from Shimano), the transfer of single chain rings from mountain bikes to road and gravel bikes and drop seats on road bikes.