Picnic PostNL brings a safety innovation to the WorldTour-peloton: cycling airbag adopted by Dutch team

Crashes are part of cycling - that much has always been accepted. But rider safety has become an increasingly urgent topic in recent years. The death of Muriel Furrer, along with repeated mass crashes in races, has fuelled an intense debate about how the sport can be made safer. What needs to change? One team, Team Picnic PostNL, is at least willing to explore a daring new solution.

Enter the Aerobag, an airbag for cyclists, as the name already suggests. The system is worn on the rider’s back and consists of a compact control unit combined with CO₂ cartridges. When deployed, the airbag is designed to protect the hips, ribs, collarbones and neck. In other words, it aims to cover many of the body parts most vulnerable in a crash.

According to its developers, the Aerobag could represent a new revolution in rider safety. “It’s all fired by an algorithm,” Quinton van Loggerenberg, Aerobag's development manager, explains to BikeRadar. “There are XYZ sensors, inertia sensors, impact sensors, and there are magnetic fields to give you a fixed zero – the system is very clever”

Van Loggerenberg demonstrated the Aerobag on a mannequin dressed in Team Picnic PostNL colours. The airbag itself was integrated into the shorts. That does require a small adjustment to the team kit, but nothing drastic. “That’s only because we need to control where the tubes go so that the inflation happens in the right place,” he explains.

The original idea dates back around seven years and was triggered by another fatal crash. “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.” Lambrecht died during the 2019 Tour of Poland as a result of a crash.

The fact that the Aerobag was tested in a Team Picnic PostNL kit is no coincidence. The Dutch squad is already training with the system, and there is a possibility it could even be used in races. '“Nalini has made these for Picnic PostNL and is the early adopter for us. Nalini has committed to working with us for the coming season for more general availability to the public.”

Could the Aerobag bring about a safety revolution comparable to the introduction of helmets? The coming years will tell. What is already certain is that the project has the backing of cycling’s governing body. “We are already in discussion with the UCI through a number of projects, and the UCI have been broadly supportive.”