'endurance' / 'comfort geometry' road bikes

been out in the hills north of melbs of late. there's hills, there's good scenery, there's also a fair bit of ruff'd up tarmac on the roads due to the bushfires last year. i gotta admit i was shook from the ride of the CAAD9 when i got home last week.

there's a few of these serious road bikes with a more relaxed geo cropping up, they'd seem to be perfect for this type of riding - the new version of the scott CR1, giant defy advanced, c'dale synapse, specialized roubaix. anyone had any experience of something like this? not really thinkin baout trading up at the moment or anything, but maybe down the road it could be the way to go?

is this secretly more of a middle-aged businessman thing that i should be steering clear of??

They're going to make next to bugger all difference on bad road surfaces. Get bigger tyres and pump them up less if you want to make some sort of difference. The geometry will make a difference to positional comfort but very little to how the bike deal with the road.

do you guys mind explaining to a noob what different geometries do to change things like speed, comfort, control, etc (and how they do this). or at least point me to somewhere to read about it? i'm beginning to already think i want to upgrade from my 3speed hybrid to a road bike in the next year or so. i've been going on longer and longer rides and want something best suited for what i need.

no worries, i have this thing called google
http://www.bikecyclingreviews.com/Frame_Geometry.html

ha sorry jax, i woulda helped but i started this thread last night and then went straight out. most of these bikes are making the head tube a bit longer, which puts the handlebars up higher (so you don't have to stretch down and out as much). wheelbase tends to be a bit longer to lessen the twitchy feel that you get with some race bikes, and some of them have more flex built into the rear end to soak up the bumps. (specialized put jelly inserts into theirs to dampen the vibrations.)

compare and contrast: giant TCR vs defy