Aerobag is a wearable airbag designed for professional cyclists, which will be used by WorldTour team Picnic PostNL in training this season – and possibly even races.
The system consists of TPU tubes integrated into channels sewn into lightly modified bib shorts, and a small pouch worn on the rear of the rider’s back. This contains the brains of the system and the user-replaceable €35 CO₂ cartridge.
When the system fires, the TPU tubes inflate and provide impact protection for your hips, pelvis, ribs, trunk, torso, collarbone and neck.
Airbags for cyclists have long been mooted as a hypothetical safety solution. But, Aerobag is one of the first serious attempts to bring impact protection into the pro peloton without fundamentally changing how riders dress, move or race.
How does Aerobag work?
Aerobag uses electronic sensors and software to detect a crash and trigger inflation.
“It’s all fired by an algorithm,” explains Quinton van Loggerenberg, Aerobag international business development manager. “There are XYZ sensors, inertia sensors, impact sensors, and there are magnetic fields to give you a fixed zero – the system is very clever”
He explains that cycling kit needs to be lightly modified to accommodate the system: “That’s only because we need to control where the tubes go so that the inflation happens in the right place”
In practice, this means adding small, elastic loops that hold the sleeved tubes in the right place.
Van Loggerenberg was keen to stress that Aerobag is sold as a standalone system rather than being permanently built into one item: “You get an airbag system, and then you can have your bib shorts and your jacket or whatever:
While he feels the system is “small enough and light enough,” Van Loggerenberg concedes it’s “not quite cheap enough.”
“We’re trying to keep it around the sort of €750 to €800,” he said. “It’s pretty expensive. There’s a lot of technology involved.”
Van Loggerenberg said the idea for Aerobag came after a young Belgian rider.
“[When] Bjorg Lambrecht crashed and died, we decided that there had to be a better way of sending riders down the road,” he said. “You can’t send them down the road in [just] Lycra at 70km/h.”
Team Picnic PostNL to use the tech
Team Picnic PostNL has already announced it will use Aerobag, with Van Loggerenberg saying “another major WorldTour team” will soon announce it’s using the system.
As Picnic PostNL’s clothing sponsor, Nalini is producing the initial integrated kit and is working with Aerobag on wider availability.
“Nalini has made these for Picnic PostNL and is the early adopter for us,” van Loggerenberg said.
“Nalini has committed to working with us for the coming season for more general availability to the public,” he continues.
Van Loggerenbergsaid Aerobag is already in contact with cycling’s governing body, the UCI, over adopting the system.
“We are already in discussion with the UCI through a number of projects, and the UCI have been broadly supportive,” he said.
He feels confident the UCI will welcome the system, citing Belgian employment law, which mandates that an employee – in this case, a sponsored rider – has a right to use safety equipment if they request it.
As for the effectiveness of the system, he concludes by saying: “The reason you can’t buy a car without an airbag is because [they] just work.”
