Anytime I see someone commenting about sweating during a commute I have to laugh. Especially if they're from somewhere where they don't have hot or humid weather. Even more so if they're only experienced with flat commuting. Throw in any sort of decent hill and it all falls apart.
Easy to see for yourself, look at the grade for a local hill and then run the numbers through a power calculator to see what the power needed to go a certain speed is. Regardless of weather or attire anytime a hill gets steeper than 1-2% it is impossible to ride up at a pace available on the most common gearing without sweating. Or really a pace faster than walking without sweating. I sweat a lot but I certainly don't think it's excessive. I've never been riding around in the sun sweating and then been like "man I'm am chilled to the bone by all this sweat."
To equate walking with cycling is also disingenuous as they are obviously completely different activities and require different physical inputs to achieve a reasonable moving speed.
In theory at least, someone should in most cases be able to ride any distance on a bicycle with less sweat than walking that same distance in the same conditions.
What's been your experience with testing this out yourself? Did any of the commentators at the conference have any experience themselves? "In theory" is hilarious when it's something so easy to test for oneself.
