Cooled handlebars for biking

News | Telegraph

An interesting concept for sure, but I think they might well be missing a key issue of human body thermoregulation. Ie, when skin is in contact with a cold surface, vasoconstriction occurs, and as such, heat transfer is reduced. Thus, while the cooled handle bars might serve on the surface as a good idea, in practice may not be so effective.

However…. one can trick the human body a little bit, by applying a vacuum, and in doing so counter vasoconstriction. I am not aware of anyone doing this in the handle bar domain, although it is somewhat common in the arena of football and medicine, when palm based heat transfer efficiency is used for both heating and cooling. This is perhaps best demonstrated in US Patent 6966922 and as well as in commercial products such as CoreControl.