Riders have gone skiing, wild water-rafting and even climbed Mount Kilimanjaro as team-building training camp exercises in the past, but Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe certainly opted to push the boat – or rather plane – out this week in Mallorca.
A nine-rider formation, led by 2025 Tour de France podium finisher Florian Lipowitz successfully managed to tow a glider plane to flight using only human energy.
Communication was crucial in an unprecedented plane-launching effort, a team press release pointed out, as riders couldn’t see the glider, and pilot Andy Hediger lost sight of them immediately after take-off.
“When I first heard about this project, I didn’t think it was possible. Launching a plane? It seemed impossible. Nothing like this has ever been done in road cycling,” Florian Lipowitz added.
With riders averaging 650 Watts for 90 seconds. Dan Bigham, Head of Engineering recognised that “The effort was unique, but equally comparable to a ‘race winning move’, with the added complexity of balancing the forces with your team-mate to keep the peloton unified.
“The harness was a critical element, something that simply did not exist before. We spent countless hours developing it.”
“From the data and our models we knew it would take around 500 Watts from each rider to launch the plane, but we did not want to stop there. Every extra Watt meant more altitude for the plane. To see Andy reach 100 meters was pretty special.”
The team’s top signing for 2026, Remco Evenepoel, as well as Lipowitz, Primož Roglič and the other high-profile riders in the squad are expected to reveal their race programs at the team media day later on Wednesday.
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