Hot on the Giro d’Italia topic

sportspodium (67)in #sports • 7 years ago

I have written about high tech swim skins before…but today, hot on the Giro d’Italia topic, I am going to tell you about next level cycling skins.

Just a heads up, both swimming skins and cycling skins are the domain of the brave. They are tight. I am going to leave that there and just move on.

My favourite brand of high tech cycling skins is a small Swiss firm owned by a 3rd generation cycling family. The Swiss are familiar with the importance of aerodynamics – they have a history of skiing at eye watering speed, of aviation, motorsport and they live in valleys and gorges whipped by wind. But they realized that cycling was never given the same aerodynamic attention.

After building a carbon fiber bike (which apparently was a nightmare given that the carbon had to be sourced from military aviation sources and space stations – not an easy task during the Cold War). The bike performed fantastic under test circumstances, but when the human was added it was clear that attention had to be given to the clothing. The human form is not very aerodynamic….but the Swiss are not thrown by minor inconveniences.

The company turned to friends who performed well in downhill skiing…and discovered a new polyester type fabric used by the skiers called lycra. Thus the first lycra cycling shorts were born. The cycling world took to this like a tornado to a trailer park and it became a run-away success. Soon seven out of the top ten Tour de France teams were clad in lycra and improving their performance time.

Fast forward about 40 years and we are in the era of the new high tech skins. If you are a Bradley Wiggins, a Chris Froome or Lance Armstrong, you are in for special treatment. The rest of us have to buy off the shelf. But man, those custom skins are beauties. All handmade. The sports equivalent of haute couture fashion. Extremely accurate measurements are taken to make the skins as aero as possible. You don’t want any wrinkles or flapping fabric here…it’s not a red carpet.

There are a multiple number of fabrics that you can select even waterproof for rainy stages. All the bright coloured skins you see start off as a plain white. After the cutting (with a band saw of all things) the colour is pressed onto the cut out under 8 bars of pressure and 200C. The construction of the aerodynamic material and the carbon fiber are industry secrets and the rolls of material are stored in very secure locations. The shorts are bonded to the vest, elasticated zippers are added…and even the handmade highly customized skins get a comfortable high tech chamois padding so that the rider can sit comfortably.

The prices of these suits are never disclosed and it is unclear whether names like Wiggins, Froome, Armstrong and their ilk are even charged – the marketing value of that type of rider exceeds the dizzying prices of hand constructing the actual skins.

And yes, they do make you faster. After a lot of practice and riding very expensive custom carbon fiber bikes.