A professional cycling team runs on more than muscle and grit—it runs on tech. From the team car to the recovery zone, there’s a world of tools working quietly in the background. You won’t see them on TV, but they’re essential to every result, every performance, and every rider. Here are 12 of the most important.
1. VeloViewer
Used across the sport and often referenced on broadcasts, VeloViewer is the nerve center of the car on race day. A live tracker of the race route is laid on a local map and shows road gradients, wind direction and key points, all in real time. Our directors add rider feed points and other pivotal areas like tight bends, road narrowings and cobble sectors. It’s a one-stop race GPS.
2. Epic Ride Weather
An advanced weather app, Epic Ride Weather, informs our team on the conditions they will encounter on race day. Precipitation levels, cloud cover and wind directions are included and can be overlaid on the race route. We can pinpoint the exact area of a race where our athletes need to be positioned for crucial, wind-driven splits.
3. The Cobble Plate
Many races feature rough terrain and unpaved roads, especially in the Classics season. With uneven cobbles and ditches, the risk of bottoming out at a race like Paris-Roubaix is entirely too real. Smash up your car, and you just knocked your mobile feed station, bike workshop, and tactic HQ out of the action. A reinforced metal plate underneath the car protects all of its vitals. Rarely seen, but often heard when you hear the screeching sweet symphony of rock on metal as the caravan thunders by.
4. SWAY
SWAY plays a vital role in understanding an athlete’s condition following a potential head trauma. The platform contains over 40 different tests spanning balance, cognition, and function. The data allows our team doctors to accurately assess an athlete’s condition and decide the best course of action for a healthy recovery.
5. Starlink
It’s important to have as much information as possible in the race car. From VeloViewer to live race broadcasts, a lot is used to dictate tactics in the race. The only hitch? It all requires a solid internet connection. When you’re racing in rural areas, that can be hard to come by. That’s why our race car is fitted with a Starlink satellite internet system to keep our directors out of the dark, regardless of where in the world they are.
6. Wahoo+Whoop data
Pre and post-race data are crucial to performance. Our Wahoo computers track our athletes’ recovery data, which we use to assess fitness conditions and devise race strategy. The small piece of wearable tech you can spot on our athletes’ wrists isn’t a watch, but trackers from Whoop. They help optimize health, fitness, and overall wellbeing by monitoring sleep, strain, recovery and physical exertion. This data allows our coaches to personalize training to suit their bodies, staying one step ahead of burnout.
7. CORE Sensors
Data doesn’t just start and end with sleep. Heat training has become a vital factor in performance over the last few years. Preparing for harsh climates in both a safe and practical manner is crucial. With the CORE sensor, our coaches monitor heat strain during race weeks to optimize post-race recovery and ensure our athletes are ready to perform in all climates and avoid the undue strain heat places on the body and mind.
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8. The Transponder Sleeve
In bike racing, it’s important for the organization to know the where and who of athlete positions. That’s why they give us transponders. But where do we put them on the bike? Well, sometimes they are fixed via cable tie to the chain stay, but more often than not, we tape them to the front fork underneath a handy bit of elasticated rubber. Simple ay?
9. Park Tool INF-2 Shop Inflator
As you can imagine, our mechanics need to inflate a whole load of tires. Anything to make this process quicker, easier and more accurate is a major time saver. To get our bikes race-ready, our mechanics use the Park Tool INF-2 Shop Inflator in conjunction with an air compressor and hose for quick, reliable inflation. Then, at the race, they use a contraption that looks like a drill with a pressure hose instead of a drill bit to quickly inflate the tires within seconds.
10. NAQI Sports Lotions
End-of-race massage is key to athlete recovery. The end of one race often means the beginning of the next, and our wide array of products from NAQI includes relaxing lotions, cooling sprays, and creams to help with the inevitable bout of road rash. Ultra-fancy hidden tech: we even have sticky sprays to help keep all our aero kit exactly that.
11. The Human Powered Health Performance Lab
The Human Powered Health Performance Labs are flush with tech that assists our athletes year-round. It all starts with a screening in Wellesley, MA. DXA scans, grip strength, resting metabolic rate, TrueStrength analysis, VO2 max tests, lactate threshold tests, bike fits, watt-bike, biodex balance and functional movement screening, it’s all there. Our coaches then use that data to inform choices in the early season and as an overall baseline.
12. Spreadsheets
Stay with us here, it might seem boring and obvious, but we love a good spreadsheet. We use them daily to give our coaches accurate calculations for things like estimated climbing times, TT data, and comparisons throughout the season. We wouldn’t get far without a trusty spreadsheet.
13. The “Human Tech”
Possibly our greatest piece of ‘tech’ is the human minds that power our committed and passionate workforce. It is people who truly keep our athletes on the road, and everyone has a part to play in the success of the team. Experts in logistics, massages, bus drivers, designers, mechanics, doctors, coaches, cooks – the list is endless (ed. dare we say writers?) – every piece is needed to complete the performance puzzle.
