Shock Seat-Post
( http://www.thudbuster.com can save your spine, and is gloriously-better than full-shock-frame, for most riding — parallelogram-hinge moves in the *right* direction, when one hits a bump )

Clip-in pedals that give “float” freedom, and-so don’t harm your knees
( Speedplay Frog pedals, with whatever mountain-bike shoes fit you right )

Click-shifters that you like
( SRAM mountain are excellent )

Shock-fork that eats the fatigue from your upper-body
( Action-Tec shock-fork is ideal for general-riding/commuting, SRAM iRide fork is a cheaper less-rugged equiv, conventional 2-shock forks are heavier, but better for “mountain” riding )

Good soft/grippy grips

Good stroboscopic lights red-rear & white-front
( creates *distinct & conscious* awareness among other road-users )

Good steady-light for seeing the road

Excellent tires
( Schwalbe Marathon Supreme – summer / Marathon Winter for the rough-season, some other brands are reputedly equal, but I can’t get the Vredesteins here, & all others I’ve used don’t compare with these-2 )

Disc brakes ( Avid BB7: no oil to contaminate the earth )

Pannier mount-points that are higher ( in back ) to keep one’s panniers out of one’s heels!
( & to keep one’s centre-of-balance closer to one’s body )

These things *already* make such a huge difference,
that anyone who is used to the department-store bikes,
or hardware-store bikes,
who tries a correctly-configured bike rigged this-way,
will *fall in-love* with riding,
right there on the spot.

Instead of trying to find some new gimmick,
why-not get people to try what works excellently right-now,
as that’d make *more* difference to our individual-survival,
as well as to our racial health?

( I used to do 1000km/month as a courier,
in the winter,
so I know the difference between effective + junk, in this stuff.
For winter-riding,
cold-face-masks from Cabela’s are also a necessity:
they’re like ski-masks,
but have a module for heating/humidifying one’s incoming air,
by capturing heat/moisture from one’s out-going air )

The simple fact that bicycles have been around for years,
but *only now are becoming popular* for day-in-day-out living,
shows that the problem isn’t the lack of Some Specific Thing,
it’s a lack of lifestyle-embrace,
that is all…

These best-of-breed changes all contribute to making cycling a living-embrace, rather-than something one does periodically, and THAT would make the biggest difference.

Feel free to tell me to go-to-hell,
but TRY this stuff & compare the ride,
before jumping on conclusions…

Cheers,
Trajan