French bike brand Van Rysel has launched an airbag skinsuit designed for road racing that it calls a "major step forward in the evolution of rider safety".
Called Project Airbag, the suit's cushioning deploys in 60 milliseconds and is fully integrated rather than being worn under or over other garments, and weighs around 700g.
Developed in tandem with aerodynamics specialist Swiss Side, the suit is currently in the final stages of testing with Van Rysel's WorldTour riders on the Decathlon CMA CGM team, for which it also supplies bikes.
Riders such as Classics man Tiesj Benoot and teen sensation Paul Seixas are likely to be among the first to benefit and may have already tried the suit out.
While Project Airbag's use in the pro peloton is not imminent, Van Rysel is at the centre of current UCI consultations on airbag standardisations for racing, it says.
The suit's protection is focused on the rib cage and thorax, stabilisation of the neck and spine protection, says Van Rysel. Its "detection algorithms" are based on more than 450 million kilometres of data, analysing rider movements at 1,000 a second, it adds.
The team's CEO Dominique Serieys, says the suit will improve rider performance by reducing mental stress and concerns about crashing.
"Professional cycling is getting faster and faster, which makes protecting our riders an absolute necessity," says Serieys. "The airbag developed by Van Rysel is a true technological breakthrough. It is crucial to understand that a rider who feels safe is relieved of mental load: this peace of mind is a genuine performance gain.
He added: "We are now beginning testing with the riders to fine-tune the technology as much as possible, so that we can one day use it in racing."
Project Airbag was developed in response to what Van Rysel calls the "constant issue" of crash rates and severe injuries at WorldTour level. Twenty per cent of riders sustain fractures each season, it says, with 1,300 fractures having been recorded over the past six years.
Van Rysel product manager Jocelyn Bar compared the introduction of the suit to that of helmets 20 years ago: "Behind every race number, there’s a human being and sadly it is still widely accepted that a rider can lose everything in a fraction of a second due to a crash. At Van Rysel, this is a fact we no longer want to accept. What helmets represented 20 years ago, we think Airbag can represent today, but now, we’re looking beyond the head, we need to protect as much of the body as we can.”
