Originally Posted by
Doge
My view (not being dogmatic about this), is a Roadie is a person who uses as their primary bike one that looks legal for mass start road racing - aka a Road Bike optimized for performance on a paved road.
See, I think being a roadie is more a state of mind than the type of bike one rides (although clearly all roadies ride drop bar road bikes). One should consider themselves a roadie if they have some sort of personal performance improvement goal, usually revolving around improvement of distance and speed.
I think all roadie norms can be traced back to this single common mental state (lycra, equipment obsessions and weight weenieism, strava, certain behavioral norms, etc.).