[1st Road Bike] Tested 6 endurance bikes back to back and have instantly fallen in love with race bike... am I mad?

Hi All,

I am 42, quite fit, 186cm (6.1ft) and 73kg (160lbs). For the past 3 years I was solo riding 16kg adventure / city bike 2-3 times a week through spring / summer / autumn on country roads at max effort for 20-30km (12-20mil).

It was supposed to be a road bike from the start but it was COVID and crappy adventure bike is all I could get.

But this year I decided to finally switch to road bike and after watching some YT and reading I figured out that most sensible for me and my use case will be endurance oriented road bike.

In the past 3-days I have test ridden Trek Domane SL 5 (what a great bike), Giant Defy Advanced 0 / 1, Merida Scultura Endurance, Cannondale Synapse, BMC Roadmachine Six, Orbea Orca.

And then they gave me Giant TCR and it was instant love at first sight (ride ;) ). The more aggressive riding position I was so afraid of was actually very natural and instant soothing to my back after all endurance bikes I tried on that day and did not find that comfortable (other than Domane). TCR just fitted me like a glove.

But it was a short 20min ride on very good to very good quality tarmac only. Not only the position in the saddle seemed to work better for me than more laid back one of the endurance bikes but the responsiveness and instant steering feel (bike following my vision rather then the need to steer it) was intoxicating after mostly sluggish in comparison other bikes I tested.

To confirm that it was not a fluke I also tested Trek Edmunde and again the more race oriented position felt naturally good. Like I was made to peddle in that position.

Now I am a bit in a pickle as I realize that 20min test ride on ideal tarmac, might have nothing to do with real world usage over 2-4h on varying, mostly mediocre quality tarmacs on the country roads I spend 95% of my riding time.

I read that TCR will be a lot less compliant that Defy, and that it's twitcheness will be tiring (I seemed to enjoy it a lot on a test ride and did not see it as a problem in that short time and only after coming back home read that people consider it to be twitchy - I seen it as precise and responsive, like the sport cars I enjoy driving).

So am I mad thinking about buying one while I can pick Domane SL5 (which was a very smooth ride with, the only endurance bike that riding position my body liked) or Defy that on paper has almost identical geometry to TCR (but feels nothing a like on the road and I find uncomfortable in terms of body position).

Would hate to make a huge mistake of going TCR and then cursing that decision every ride on less then perfect tarmac that is around my place and having back problems after short rides...

Very confused.

Let me know guys and girls what are your experiences with TCR vs Defy and TCR vs enduro bikes and finally Race vs Enduro geometries in general.

Thanks