What caused Shimano's Coasting-program to fail? (2010)

Do _most_ people at your work cycle in? I work in a large office tower where thousands of people work. A small minority cycle to work. There are very good end of trip facilities (lockers, showers, irons, spin dryers, drying cabinets etc) available. I'd estimate there are 100 bike racks available. The bike racks get pretty full during spring and autumn when the temperatures are in the 20s (celcius) and there is no rain forecast. During the height of summer the patronage drops off (maybe 70%). During winter patronage drops markedly (often well below 40%, especially if rain is forecast).

I have been cycle commuting to school, university and various workplaces since the 80's on BMX and MTBs. I started out commuting in casual clothes (school), continued with casual clothes when I began cycling significantly further to university, but needed to carry a change of clothes due to sweat or rain. I joined the university cycle club and was introduced (admittedly with considerable skepticism) to the benefits of lycra (less chafe, faster to dry) and eventually also bought a road bike. The road bike made a big difference to my commute times/effort.

As a post grad student I had access to showers in my department. So I could ride faster/further (for fun) then shower and change before starting my day. Almost all my work places since leaving university have had shower facilities that allowed me to continue cycle commuting. Almost all the other cycle commuters at those work places that rode more than ~5km would opt to shower also. Why? because they got sweaty or wet and dirty.

If the weather is so good for cycling why do people want the end of trip shower?

By far most people I have worked with will not cycle commute at all (too far, too hard, don't want to mess up their hair with a helmet, too unsafe on the roads, take too long etc). Of those that did cycle commute, many are not all year round commuters, for the reasons I outlined above.

You may be comfortable riding in all kinds of weather. My experience is that the vast majority of Australians are not - even when end of trip facilities are available.

> Maybe, just maybe, your mom and your sister aren't the perfect bellwethers of the needs of skittish would-be-bike-riders in the world

Your claim is that nobody wants them. I know at least two, which is more than 0.

They aren't popular yet, but I'm willing to bet that they will be with further development. Let's not forget that the first automatic gearbox for cars, the 1904 Sturtevant "horseless carriage gearbox", wasn't exactly a market hit - it took until the late 1940's for it to take off as a polished product and longer still to overtake manual transmissions (due to similar cited concerns about maintainability and the level of control).

In fact, I actually drive a manual transmission in my car because of those factors (and manual is still more popular in the UK), but clearly the majority of the market has moved on.