Yes, and he's not even talking about competition but simply exercise. In a world where it's difficult to even get people who have diabetes or heart disease to take regular 10 minute walks he wants exercise to hurt.

Train harder, not smarter!

if you want exercise, get a fatbike with aggressive tires. A lot of time a bike is coasting (no exercise) on a paved bike path where it often is impractical to "race". With the fatbike, you are pedaling most the time. You will be significantly faster when you switch back to a pavement bike.

Judge much?

What I would like as much as heated handle bars is a cooled and ventilated saddle. My wife has cooled and ventilated seats in her car, and they are fantastic!

There are systems for motorcycles that run cold water through tubing to keep the rider cool. They don't seem quite practical just yet though. I bet they wouldn't do great for keeping a cyclist cool though. You can, however, get good heated gear that runs on batteries now.

Yikes. How awful. Next you’ll be telling us that there are companies selling bikes with soft comfortable chairs where you lay down in place of a small saddle that you sit on.

I was being sarcastic.

Oh, I wasn't really being serious either. That said, I do have some 7v battery gloves that I bought to use on a motorcycle that doesn't have a lot of extra juice for my plug in heated gloves. I'm going to try those on the bicycle this winter.

Enjoy the new bike(s)!

I think they are going after retired riders who have stopped riding because of discomfort. If you can provide comfort you gain more riders. At the end it’s all about $$$.

The hurt you inflict on yourself in a hard effort is different than the hurt caused by a harsh or poorly fitted bike. I had a Cervelo Soloist that was pretty harsh. It was an awesome crit bike: super quick handling and so stiff it felt like every watt was directed into road. The problem was that it just beat the crap out of me on rides longer than 90 minutes, especially on the rural roads where we have road races out here. When you're all beat to hell, it's harder to do high quality work outs that build the engine during training, or to find those matches at the end of a race.

That is precisely what brought me back. Increased comfort, coupled with increased speed. And many older riders have the disposable income to afford nice bikes. Cheaper than classic sports cars, and as another said, hookers and blow.

I don’t have a problem staying away from the hookersand blow, but the cars are a different story.