FEATURE Eric DeGolier
really valuable. I think it just makes it more enjoyable for everyone as well.”
Working with brands Alongside working with athletes, Body Rocket has started collaborating with brands to offer real time data to assist with product development, including most recently with Ekoï. “If you’re a clothing brand or helmet manufacturer, the
Working with elite athletes The proposition for Body Rocket has been unique from the outset.
Rather than testing aerodynamics in a wind tunnel or velodrome, DeGolier wants riders to train with aerodynamics integrated on the bike, similar to a traditional power meter, with real-time data. Riders are able to use Body Rocket on a daily basis over a longer period, which provides a meaningful set of data that the athlete can learn from and make regular, incremental adjustments. To put this to the test, Body Rocket entered into a multi- year aero tech partnership with both Blummenfelt and Iden. “Our first experience with Kristian [Blummenfelt], he came back and he said ‘this felt faster, this felt slower’,” said DeGolier. “We asked ‘well did you look at the data?’ and he said ‘no, it doesn’t make any sense to me’, so that has been a big focus for this year.
“But we were super excited to have the guys come off their last bit of testing and confidently quote the numbers that they were seeing live.”
This experience will also help DeGolier and Body Rocket when it comes to launching the product to everyday riders. “You’re a cyclist, not a scientist,” said DeGolier. “Not everybody wants to schedule out a test before they go out for the ride and then rigorously go through those tests. “So for people to be able to go out and just experiment and move around and see things makes the consumer experience
Picture: Bastien Lemair
tendency is to design your kit for your Tour de France contender and then for everybody else, you just have to hope it works for them. That’s kind of the economics of aerodynamics right now,” explained DeGolier. “You have to have your key guy winning and you can’t afford
to then do a study with 30 other athletes that you brought into the wind tunnel. That’s something we can bring to brands “We can actually say ‘well, we’re going to put your helmet on a group of 20 athletes with a range of different morphologies and we’re going to help you design a helmet that works for the 95th percentile of your customers, not just for the 1% at the top’.” By January next year, DeGolier expects to have 25 bikes in its fleet so there is capacity for more brands to utilise Body Rocket. “We are very much open to talking to brands, now is the right time,” he said.
Taking the product to market The long term goal for Body Rocket has always been to make real time aerodynamic data accessible to all. To start with, select athletes will receive test units to use for a couple of weeks and then that will expand to leaving it with them for several months. “As an experienced product designer, I know that they’re
going to break these things in ways that we hadn’t imagined,” said DeGolier. “We will get to the point where we’re comfortable leaving
beta test units for an indefinite period of time, expect that they’re going to work and the athletes can continue to get value out of them. At that point, we’re ready to tool up and make a product.”
So with that in mind, how close is the product to launching
to the mass market? “Our target is to complete that process in the next 12 months,” said DeGolier. “We would like to have commercial products available and under our athletes at the Ironman World Championships next year. Bringing a hardware product to market is expensive, so there is a certain amount of money that we need to raise in between to make that happen.
“But that’s our target, and it’s achievable if we have the right team to do it.”
30 | November 2023
www.bikebiz.com
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