Visma-Lease a Bike got the green light to use its “transformational” breathing sensors in competition ahead of the 2025 Tour de France in what could mark a step-change in performance technology.
Tymewear – the brand behind the VitalPro breath sensor – exclusively shared with Velo a note sent to Visma-Lease a Bike by the UCI confirming full approval of its potentially game-changing tech.
“Considering that the sensor appears to be commercially available and the data it captures does not appear to undermine the fairness or integrity of the sport, the UCI has decided to permit the use of the sensor in competition,” reads an extract of the note dated June 4.
Breathing – or “ventilation” – sensors will provide the team of Jonas Vingegaard and Wout van Aert a powerful new metric for training and racing.
The tool unlocks a deeper level of understanding of physiological suffering than power or heart rate data.
Also read: Unpacking the potential of breath sensors
Tymewear claims the VitalPro sensor provides the most accurate insight into exercise strain outside of a lab test. In theory, it will help athletes perfectly meter out pain.
The imminent release of the UCI-approved VitalPro could blow breathing data all through the data-hungry peloton.
Visma-Lease a Bike anticipates ‘massive learnings’
Visma-Lease a Bike head of performance Mathieu Heijboer told Velo on Thursday the approval could have huge impacts for how his “super team” races and trains.
“Measuring ventilation in the field, in the most accurate way currently possible, will provide us massive learnings on how the body copes with efforts in competition. These are efforts that cannot be replicated in training or in the lab,” Heijboer told Velo.
“It will help us a lot in optimizing training and improving our race strategies,” he said.
As first reported by Velo, Tymewear and Visma-Lease a Bike have been collaborating for some time in the development of breathing sensor technology.
Several Visma athletes had been using the tool in racing through the past 18 months, until the UCI tapped the brakes and told the team to hold its breath, pending official approval.
The UCI prohibits the in-competition use of sensors that “capture other physiological data, including any metabolic values such as but not limited to glucose or lactate.”
The governing body concluded in its note last week that Tymewear checked the boxes required for use in full training and racing.
Breathing sensors enter the 2025 Tour de France
So what does that mean for Visma-Lease a Bike?
In the short term, maybe not too much. As previously noted, the team is still learning how to interpret and roll forward the insights spilling from its sensors.
But in the longer term, the full approval of breathing sensors could be huge.
“A reliable, accurate ventilation sensor could be as big a breakthrough as the first heart rate monitor was in the 70s,” Tymewear co-founder and CEO Arnar Larusson recently told Velo. “It could even be bigger, even more transformational.”
The V-LAB lesson in ventilation starts now.
Heijboer told Velo that we can expect to see those distinctive breath sensor bulges beneath the jerseys of Vingegaard, Van Aert, Matteo Jorgenson, and Sepp Kuss as soon as the Tour’s grand départ.
“We’ll definitely also use Tymewear in competition, but purely for data collection and learning. There’s still a lot to learn in this area,” Heijboer said.
“We’ll probably use it in the Tour de France this year too, but with no different objective as with other competition. It will just be for data and learning.”
The VitalPro sensor is coming …
The VitalPro sensor is already available for pre-order and, according to Larusson, is due for imminent release. The product mounts a heart rate sensor onto the front and a ventilation sensor onto the back of one chest strap.
Read more: Velo’s deep dive into the VitalPro
The pioneering gadget has been bubbling a storm of interest in the past year.
Ultramarathon superstar Kilian Jornet, European soccer teams, and Scandinavian cross-country skiers were all involved in early trials, and the wider endurance sporting community has taken note.
Tymewear boss Larusson hinted he expects the peloton to be packed out with breathing sensors very soon.
“This UCI approval is critical for other teams adopting the sensors,” Larusson told Velo this week.
“Until now, it was a logistical headache for riders to be switching between a ‘race strap’ without a breathing sensor, and a Tymewear ‘training strap’ with the breath sensor.”
So, are breathing sensors poised to blow up bike racing?
We’ll find out soon.