With the Winter Olympics ongoing right now, along with the argument about whether cyclocross should be included in future additions, many cycling fans might be recognising certain technologies and brand names on display. Oakley is a prominent one for glasses and helmets in skiing, but the likes of POC, Scott, and Rudy Project are also well represented.
Then we have Bioracer skinsuits being used and innovative aero fabrics that look right out of a time trial. That’s before we even get into aero helmet controversies, waxing, skiers in the wind tunnel, and bobsleds shooting down at 150+kph. There are plenty of interesting technologies, as well as controversies, on display.
Fabric and skinsuits
One of my personal favourites is fabrics and skinsuit technology. This has been most present in Speed Skating, both long and short track, at least in terms of looking very similar to a cycling kit. This is mainly due to the speeds being comparable, as well as the body position being similar.
We have higher speed events such as Luge, Skeleton, Ski jumping, etc., but the speeds are in excess of 100kph, and the way the wind interacts with body parts is very different to speed skating and cycling speeds. Interestingly, the kit used for these events is quite different to cycling. With the speed that the athletes go, rough fabrics for flow management are not as necessary. It’s more a case of low friction materials so the air can travel smoothly over the ‘tubes’ (arms and legs) and then due to higher Reynolds Numbers (a measure of how turbulent the airflow is) can better reattach flow on the other side. There’s a lot more in-depth physics behind it, but in simple terms, you’ll notice the higher speed events in the Olympics use smooth fabrics, and the lower speed ones are more textured.
For speed skating, however, we are seeing brands such as Bioracer kitting out the Belgian and Dutch teams, the same as the National Cycling teams. For the…
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