Tour de Cycling Innovations

Last week the Tour de France began, and through the end of July we’ll experience yellow-jersey-folly.  This year marks the race’s 95th edition.  How much has the sport evolved in a century? 

Well, a lot! 

Rather than focusing on cycling innovations that help competitors win, I’d rather talk about two peripheral points.

1. Being a Tour de France spectator has changed a lot, even in just the past few years.  I was particularly pleased to see that this year’s official Tour website is quite V+R-esque.  Just like you can find out in real time where in the world is Philippe Fuchs, you can catch Tour cyclist gaps in real time.  So you don’t need to be on the actual sidelines or be at home glued to your television to keep track.  You can stay at work and still follow!  There are other cool functions to the official Tour website, notably the wealth of eyewitness videos, and GoogleMaps “StreetView” of the Tour. 

2. Smart cycling clothing keeps you safe.  Now there’s a new trick to add to your safety regime.  In compliment to your bike helmet, you can “be the bike.”  Why rely on arm signals or tiny flashing lights attached to your bike when you want to let others know you’re turning?  You can wear the  Turn Signal Jacket!  (Thanks for the tip Jean!) Here’s a short video made by the inventor Leah Buechley that shows how it works:

As far as I can tell, you can’t buy this in a store—Leah generously provides instructions on how to build it yourself!  Warning, you may need to exercise a little geekiness to accomplish the task. 

–Kate

P.S. If you like bikes, you may be interested to read about:  a new bike species; a VR cardio bike; how Trek uses 3D mechanical innovation to boost innovation.

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