If you’re planning to get out onto the tarmac for sport, fun, or just getting from A-to-B, now’s the time to invest in one of the best road bikes under £3000.

Three grand is a lot of money to spend on a bike but it can get you a very good, well-equipped machine. At this price, there’s a vast choice of brands offering high-quality road bikes, whether it’s for racing, sportive riding, or just exercise. To help you make your choice, we've listed the best road bikes under £3,000 that you can buy right now.

Road bikes under £3,000 aren’t quite at the featherweight pro-issue superbike level, but they're darn close without the price tag of a brand-new medium-sized car.

The mainstream spec for a sub-£3,000 road bike is a carbon fibre frame and a groupset from Shimano – usually Tiagra, 105 or Ultegra – but there are a few exceptions with steel, aluminium and even titanium frames available. Disc brakes are now practically universal in the £2,000 to £3,000 price band.

Road bikes at this level cover a wide variety of genres, so we’re covering everything from the best road bikes for racing like the Merida Reacto 6000, through the best endurance bikes such as the Giant Defy Advanced 3 to models that’ll cheerfully handle a bit of dirt under their tyres.

When we say under £3,000, we're talking about bikes in and around the £3k price bracket, most of our picks here cost between £2-3k. If you budget is considerably tighter then check out our guide to the best road bikes under £1,000, and if you're just dipping your toe and want see what you can get for your money at numerous price points, our overall best road bikes guide has options from £300 right up to a whopping £13k! 

The best road bikes under £3000

Best road bikes under £3000: how to choose and what you need to know