Sliding and sticking with cycling science

Engineered to slideOctober is a great month for getting out on a bicycle. But for cyclists—both amateurs like this Newscriptster and professionals—crashing or falling off your bike is simply inevitable. As Belgian cycling great Johan Museeuw once observed, “Crashing is part of cycling as crying is part of love.”According to data collected from hospital surveys, over 230,000 bicyclist injuries were reported in the US in 2023. One of the most common is what cyclists call road rash—that is, skin abrasions that result from a rider sliding across asphalt or other surfaces while moving at speed. But science is here to help cyclists. Many cycling clothing manufacturers are developing materials that go beyond the traditional single layer Lycra to help protect against road rash and other crash injuries. Q36.5, for example, is a cycling clothing manufacturer based in Italy and a sponsor of a professional road-cycling team. The company produces clothing that incorporates Grdxkn (pronounced “grid skin”), a fabric made with a special textile-printing technology that enhances abrasion resistance, shock absorption, and aerodynamics. The fabric features a raised outer layer meant to cushion the shock from a fall. It gets abraded sacrificially to prevent damage to a rider’s skin underneath. Another manufacturer, Nalini, is providing abrasion-resistant race wear to the Dutch professional cycling team Picnic PostNL. The bib shorts and jerseys worn by the team’s riders incorporate a strong synthetic fiber called Dyneema to reinforce the fabric and protect cyclists’ vulnerable areas like hips, shoulders, and backs. Dyneema is made of ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene produced