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Competitive cyclists are dedicated to improving their performance and physique for ultimate speed, and are always shopping around for gadgets that will help to monitor those parameters. An innovative idea from bicycle manufacturer Argon 18 could win the race to bring together all that technology and information into one “smart bike”.
The chief executive of Argon 18, Gervais Rioux, is a former road bicycle racer who participated in the 1988 Olympic Games and envisioned a smart bike that could not only measure different parameters of performance but correlate them as well.
Marc Graveline, the software engineer who developed the system, says: “There are things that our bike can measure that nobody else does, like aerodynamic drag. We are bringing together measurements from all different systems, while others only measure one thing. These things are correlated – power depends on position. Nobody else is connecting it all together.”
Graveline retired in 2013, and soon after joined triathlon competitions, where he says he became intrigued by the science of cycling. This is where he met Rioux, who swiftly asked him to join a project at Argon 18 once Graveline revealed that he had been experimenting with systems for a smart bike and had made prototypes. With Rioux’s “broad, non-detailed vision” and Graveline’s “accumulated ideas,” they got to work.
There are three main components to the bike: a collection of 24 sensors, a computer that collects data and communicates and handles traffic control, and the cloud where the data is uploaded and analysed.
Some of the sensors relate to power, speed and cadence, as well as to environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, pressure and wind speed. This allows the user to calculate a rider’s aerodynamic drag.
Physiological sensors that measure what’s going on inside the body have also been added. Sensors that cyclists wear will detect every position change and movement. There are brake sensors and seat sensors, and proximity sensors are being integrated to enable detection of nearby objects.
Graveline ensures that a standard platform is used, to which manufacturers can easily add their own sensors.
Avid riders may not have to discard their beloved old bikes to be able to take advantage of the smart system, as Argon 18 plans to offer its customers several options. Graveline says: “There will be several versions of it, some that can be added to a bike. There will be a version that will be available for any bike on the market, and a version for the Argon bikes. We’re trying to hide as many components as we can in the frame.
“There’s going to be different bundles of sensors depending on how little or much people want to do. It has to be roughly the same price as a power meter.”
Putting together such an intricate idea hasn’t been easy. “A lot of ideas are executed in laboratories, where you turn on a fan and it stimulates perfect wind and perfect altitude change,” says Graveline. “The biggest challenge is stepping out into the real world and realising how difficult it is to measure these things and correlate them. A lot of the technology out there is not precise enough.”
Recently, Graveline has been busy in Spain testing out the technology with Astana, a Tour De France team.
“This has to be very simple for all professionals to use,” he says. “The last thing you want is to be distracted by all the data on the bike. We have simpler graphs for the rider but more detailed charts for the physiologists, so there are many levels for everyone.”