Best road bikes under £3000 2024 — here are the top picks for your budget

Giant’s Defy Advanced 3 is an endurance road bike that offers a smooth ride, a Shimano Tiagra-based spec, and very good value. It’s a dependable setup for getting in the big miles in comfort.

The geometry has a huge effect on the Defy Advanced 3’s character and comfort. If a standard race bike geometry leaves you aching, perhaps this setup, with the handlebar positioned higher and closer to the saddle, will work better for you.

Even putting geometry to one side, the Defy Advanced 3 is a really comfortable bike. It comes fitted with tubeless 32mm Giant Gavia Fondo 1 tyres, slim and tapered seat stays, and Giant’s D-Fuse seatpost that is designed to flex slightly to help reduce road buzz. Giant’s own Approach saddle is comfy too.

The sum total of all the design features is that you can ride the Defy Advanced 3 for hours without feeling too jolted, vibrated or generally shaken up.

The Defy Advanced 3 isn’t a gazelle of a bike like the more race-focused TCR but it's certainly not dull either. It handles superbly, it’s highly comfortable, and with space for tyres up to 35mm, it can take you off the beaten track too.

This bike is at its best when getting in the big miles on less than perfect roads and, with the ability to take mudguards and wide tyres, it'll happily do that year-round.

The Attain GTC SL is part of Cube’s endurance range and it delivers a very good combination of comfort, both from the frameset and the geometry, and performance. It’s not a bad weight either, and certainly feels responsive to your input, making it fun to ride fast as well as comfortable for longer, more sedate jaunts. The mixture of Shimano Ultegra and 105 components is a little odd, though it does help keep the price down.

With an all-in build weight of 8.77kg, the Cube is in the right sort of ballpark for the money but it does feel much more sprightly than the scales suggest. A kick on the pedals away from the lights or when launching into a bit of a sprint sees the Attain respond well. There is plenty of stiffness around the lower section of the frame, especially around the bottom bracket area, and you feel like you are getting a decent return for your effort.

Cube has delivered a really good frameset that’s relaxed enough in its geometry that you can really tap out the miles, but if you have one of those days when you really want to get out and just smash it about it’ll also deliver the fun factor.

Delivering the aerodynamics, awesome handling and stiffness of the top-level STC, this Venturi Evo 105 model gives a more affordable route into Orro ownership. It’s certainly a lot of bike for the money.

The Venturi has a race bike feel to it in terms of how it responds to power input. It’s a proper point-and-shoot kind of bike that repays you for riding it hard. Point it at a hill and get out of the saddle and you aren't going to be faced with any flex around the bottom bracket area or the huge down tube section.

It’s the same when it comes to sprinting. Out-of-the-saddle efforts while yanking on the bar see this thing fly down the road – it really is great for just getting out for a blast.

The geometry is just backed off a bit from a full-on racer, especially at the front end with a slightly slacker head angle of 72.2 degrees which keeps the handling just the fun side of twitchy. The medium model gets a head tube of just 142mm in height, so you still get a low-slung position for high-speed work.

The Specialized Allez Sprint Disc is a fast aluminium alloy road bike that provides brilliant handling. The frame is stiff enough to cope with sprints, but it won’t beat you up on a long ride.

The Allez Sprint comes built to a geometry that’s identical to that of Specialized’s Tarmac SL7 top-level carbon race bike, and this means it is perfectly suited to faster road rides.

The Allez Sprint isn’t as quick as a lighter carbon machine up the steeper hills, but it’s comparable everywhere else. Get yourself involved in a flat-out race for a town sign and this bike provides a very stiff platform to lay down all of your power. It also feels planted at speed, which inspires confidence.

Specialized has absolutely nailed the handling. Tip the Allez Sprint into a fast corner and it tracks perfectly.

Comfort hasn't been forgotten, either, and if you want more you can always swap the 26mm tyres for anything up to 32mm.

Shimano’s 105 R7020 groupset performs brilliantly, with dependable mechanical shifting alongside hydraulic disc brakes that offer tons of all-weather control.

The Giant Propel Advanced Disc is an efficient, firm-feeling road bike with aerodynamics designed specifically with disc brakes in mind. It’s not the lightest bike available for this kind of money but it’s fast whether you're soloing off the front or sprinting for the line.

The Propel Advanced Disc is designed with efficiency in mind, both in terms of aerodynamics and stiffness. The aero side of things is difficult to discern but this bike certainly feels stiff when you stamp on the pedals, with very little flex to speak of even when you’re standing up and giving it everything you have.

You’d have to say that the Propel Advanced Disc provides quite a firm ride, and that might or might not be to your taste. This isn't a gran fondo or endurance bike, it's a race bike (even if you don't race it) and that comes through in the feel.

That said, we got on fine with Giant's Contact Forward saddle with a composite base that flexes enough to take the edge off things, and Giant's own 25mm Gavia Race 1 tyres are set up tubeless so you can run them at lower pressures than you otherwise would without the danger of pinch flatting if you hit a pothole.

Giant has updated its Propel range since our review, claiming that the new design is significantly more aerodynamically efficient than before while also being lighter and stiffer.

The carbon Van Rysel EDR CF 105 Disc might be from the Decathlon brand’s endurance line-up but it focuses on performance and thanks to a well-dialled geometry it can be ridden hard and fast whatever your level of skill.

Don’t go thinking that this is a relaxed and upright endurance bike. The ride position and the performance of the frameset make it more like a race machine in some ways.

The designers have made the EDR close to a full-on race bike without letting it cross over into becoming too extreme or a handful from a steering point of view.

The handling is quick but not over the top and there’s plenty of stiffness in the frame and fork. The overall ride quality is good and you can fit tyres up to 30mm wide if you want more cushioning. This is a bike that responds well when you want to accelerate and it’s a good climber too, whether in the saddle or out of it.

Built up with a Shimano 105 mechanical groupset and Fulcrum wheels, you get pretty good kit for your money here; and if your budget stretches further, you can even get the Ultegra version for £3k at the time of writing. 

Overall, the Van Rysel balances performance and comfort well, and it’s ripe for upgrading as time goes on.

The Orro Terra C 105 Hydro is a stable carbon bike that’s quick on the road, with the strength and confident handling required for heading onto gravel and other hard-packed trails with the appropriate tyres (40mm tyres are fitted as standard – well into gravel territory).

Mudguard and rack mounts make this a versatile option that can cope with everything from commuting to adventure biking, and it’s one of the few sub-£3000 bikes that comes equipped with the electronic version of Shimano’s 105 Di2 groupset

The Terra C 105 Hydro comes with a compact chainset (with 50-tooth and 34-tooth chainrings) and an 11-30t cassette, a Deda Zero 1 handlebar with a round drop, and Continental Terra Trail tyres on Fulcrum Rapid Red 900 DB wheels.

One of the most noticeable characteristics of the Orro Terra C 5800 Hydro is its stability, and that’s apparent whether you’re tackling uneven roads or negotiating busy traffic. It has a settled, confident feel with enough agility to handle more technical situations.