Professor Bert Blocken
speaker
21 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Aug 2026
last heard 5 Aug
Professor Bert Blocken’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
They're sticking objects behind their shirt in order to deviate the airflow around their body and that actually reduces the air resistance of the cyclist by a few tens of percent.
What they are doing actually is sticking objects behind their shirt, so at the chest, in order to deviate the airflow around their body while on the bicycle and thereby reducing the pressure on the pelvis and on the upper thighs.
And that actually reduces the air resistance of the cyclist by a few tens of percent, which could be enough to gain several seconds in a typical time trial.
Yes, down and more in between the legs, so to actually flow in between the legs rather than to impinge rather directly on the upper thighs and the pelvis and create overpressure there.
Yeah, so the reason why we started investigating this is also because it has been used in triathlon, where actually riders have been stuck in entire bottles behind their shirt.
So not even the typical drink bottles that are used in sports, but even 1.5 liter bottles.
So huge objects and thereby actually getting 4 to 5% less air resistance even.
Indeed.
In 2023, 2024, male riders have indeed been using radio communications.
to put that at their chest and sometimes even putting bubble wrap around it to actually increase the volume.
And then at some point, UCI has started to check that.
And now actually, yeah, we've also seen female riders doing that and actually increasing their cup size to actually amplify this aerodynamic benefit.
Yes, indeed.
And that was actually more related to an increase of the frontal area and therefore the lift force.
While here, actually, the mechanism is a little bit different.
But, yeah, it's all about these marginal gains, as we call them these days.
I think it's a continuous struggle to keep up to date with the tiny modifications that are going around in the peloton.
And the riders and performance managers are always looking for these marginal gains at UCI, trying to remain on top of that.
And it's not easy.
It just, I think, requires...
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