Which is the best all-round road bike – the one that just does everything brilliantly? Cyclist ’s testers pick their favourites

They say ‘jack of all trades’, but where these four bikes are concerned, each can be considered a master of the craft. Enter Cyclist’s best all-round racers…

What was the first road bike you ever owned? Turn over the page and we’ve given you a space to draw it and five lines underneath to describe it. Ask a responsible adult to cut out the page and send it in a stamped addressed envelope to: Cyclist , 31-32 Alfred Place…

Only joking, although drawing bikes is a very nice way of passing the time, something to which our secondary school teachers will grudgingly attest. And closing one’s eyes and remembering that first road bike does rather bring into question the idea of ‘all-rounder’, because at some point we all had our first road bike, which by definition meant it was at the time our only road bike and so, de facto, was an all-rounder because it did everything, right?

We think not, as to our mind the best all-round road bike isn’t so much a bike that can ride over any terrain (that’s the preserve of the endurance bike, as discussed in issue 109) but rather a bike that systematically ticks off the road bike clichés one by one: it’s lightweight, it’s stiff, it’s comfortable. It climbs like a dedicated climber’s bike, it accelerates like a sprint machine, it descends like it’s on 32mm tyres, it flicks through the turns like a crit racer.

It’s hard to sum up, but the all-rounder is the epitome of balance in terms of handling and feel, hitting the sweetest notes between nimble and stable, punchy and smooth, flighty and solid. It’s the bike you pick out when a friend says, ‘Come out for a ride with me,’ and when you ask what the ride will be like the reply is along the lines of, ‘Some ups, some downs, quite a long draggy stretch that leads to this super-steep climb which drops into this really technical descent…’ It’s the bike that is ready for all occasions.

Or perhaps to put it another way, this is the Tadej Pogačar, Wout van Aert or Mathieu van der Poel of bikes, not just versatile but capable of top three finishes – if not outright wins – in anything from a one-day race in the Ardennes to a National time-trial to victory in a Grand Tour.

Just as you wouldn’t bet against riders such as these, you would never rule out the best all-rounder road bike beating a specialist at its own game.

Then one last thing: there’s something in this bike that makes you emotionally drawn to it because that’s the other part of the equation – the best all-rounder would also be the only road bike you’d own if you had to choose just one. The way it performs suits the way you ride, it completes you as a cyclist as best it can. The best all-rounder is your most trusted companion. And here are ours…