Originally Posted by
Commodus
It's always seemed very strange to me that bicycles are sold without features that nobody would go without on a car. You can go down and buy a Porsche for example, a very high performance vehicle, but it still has lights, fenders, a bit of luggage space, etc. Nobody turns their nose up and says 'well I want to go fast, give me that open-wheeled race car over there.'
cars are propelled by engines. bicycles are propelled by the rider. that's a significant difference between the world of cars and bikes.
maximum car speed are also highly regulated, if it were possible for a person to legally drive an open wheel formula 1 race car 250+ mph to work everyday, i GUARANTEE you that there would be many speed freaks out there who would do so, however impractical it might seem.
for bicycles, the only speed limit is how fast you can make the thing move. with the same energy input, a 15 pound carbon wonder toy will move faster than a 40 pound dutch beast.
speed is highly addictive. (but not always practical)