Tom Pidcock warmed up wearing a pair of special cooling gloves before he began Stage 16 of the Tour de France today.
The Briton rode to a 12th-place finish on the stage, 2:07 behind winner Remco Evenepoel.
Pidcock was spotted warming up before his time trial start wearing what looked like a pair of large black mittens. The gloves are a system that we haven’t seen being used by any teams at this year’s race, and a ‘Coolmitt’ wordmark on the side led to more information on them.
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The $995 system is centred around ‘Vasocooling’ and focuses on cooling the palms of the hands to lower core temperature. The Coolmitt is comprised of a ‘Patented VasoCooling Unit’, a metal tank and a ‘Rapid Thermal Exchange Mitt’ – the big, bulky black mitts.
Ice and water are added to separate chambers in the main unit, which is battery powered. The system chills the water before cycling it through pipes into pads in the mitts. Cooler blood from the hands can then circulate to the rest of the body, cooling the core temperature.
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Cyclingnews understands that more than one pro cycling team is using the system, and that Pidcock’s Pinarello Q36.5 team has several pairs. The brand’s founder, Craig Gile, provided more information on the system and explained it was originally funded by the US military and developed by Dr Craig Heller at Stanford University.
“We as human beings most effectively radiate heat out of the naturally hairless palms of hands, soles of feet, and upper part of the face, which has a distinct vascular structure”, he explained.
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Cooling these areas, specifically the palms of the hands, targets specific blood vessels called arteriovenous anastomoses (AVAs), which connect arteries to veins; cooling these areas can be far more effective at lowering core temperature.
The Coolmitt gloves deliver cooled water to a pad inside the mitts when is held by a rider and used to lower core temperature.
“The constant flow of water going across your hand is rapidly pulling heat out of your body, letting cold blood flow to your heart, and cooling from the inside out,” Gile explained
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“The water is at 12 to 15 degrees centigrade. Your hand is not directly against water. There’s water flowing through a pad, and your hand is on top of it.
Gile also explained the importance of using the correct water temperature and how simply using ice-cold water could negatively affect cooling.
“If it’s too cold, there’s a defence mechanism in your body called vasoconstriction, and it’ll actually close down that heat transfer and perversely contain heat in your body, as opposed to letting it go,” Gile said.
The system was originally conceived to support the US military and is also utilised in industrial applications by firefighters and those working in extreme heat.
This isn’t the first time equipment used in firefighting has been utilised for cooling in cycling. The GB cycling team used special chairs with troughs of cold water for arm cooling as far back as the Athens Olympics in 2004.
The temperatures in this year’s race have been consistently high, and cooling and hydration have been a priority for every rider in the race.
Cyclingnews was at the Stage 1 TTT in Barcelona and saw a range of cooling strategies on display in the team start area, including Netcompany Ineos’s wrist and hand water cooling trays, where the team’s riders submerged their forearms and hands in tubs of water chilled to 8.8° Celsius shortly before starting.
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