The Olympic Effect shows significant increases in sports participation during and following the Olympic Games and we expect the Olympic Games in Rio later this year to be no different. Richard Baker, commercial director of Wattbike, explains how they will be making a contribution to the Olympic Games this year.

The data the Wattbike provides has long been favoured by athletes and coaches ahead of major events like the Olympic Games. Are there any athletes who have been training on a Wattbike who we should look out for this summer?

Track cyclist Joanna Rowsell-Shand has trained on the Wattbike for the past two years and we have no doubt that the bike will form a key part of her preparations for the Olympic Games.

Joanna will be competing in the Team Pursuit which requires incredible speed, power and endurance, all of which can be effectively measured, analysed and improved through specific, effective sessions on the Wattbike.  

As an indoor bike, the Wattbike is an obvious choice as a training tool for cyclists. Are there athletes in any other sports who may benefit from training on the Wattbike?
Yes. Whilst the Wattbike is primarily designed as an indoor bike for cyclists, many coaches and athletes in other sports including Toni Minichiello, Jessica Ennis-Hill and Tamara Taylor have been recognising the performance enhancing benefits of the bike. We’ve had a long-running partnership with many sports and individual athletes from sailing to athletics, and more recently swimming and rugby. Athletes tend to use the Wattbike as a strength and conditioning tool to help them enhance endurance and become faster and stronger.

The Wattbike is also used to protect athletes by allowing them to offload the body during training, helping to prevent injuries whilst maintaining high outputs.  All the ingredients needed for a medal winning performance no matter what the sport.

The Wattbike has a strong following in elite sport circles – how are you looking to transfer the benefits of the Wattbike to the casual gym users?
Our main aim when developing the Wattbike was to create a training tool which can be used as effectively by the casual gym goer as it is for the elite cyclist. That’s why the product you see in the gyms is exactly the same bike as Olympic athlete Joanna Rowsell-Shand uses. Many of our users love the fact that they can truly train ‘like a pro’ just by heading to their local gym, setting up their training zones and riding each and every session precisely.

To enhance the gym user’s experience even further, we’ve developed the Wattbike Hub, a unique digital platform which lets users ride along to workouts and training plans - some of which have been designed by Joanna Rowsell herself. Once their session is complete, the workout is saved directly to the Wattbike Hub, ready for further analysis and sharing with friends, coaches or personal trainers.

The digital platform sounds like an interesting development. Are you hoping this will encourage sports participation post Olympics?
In today’s digital world, users expect to be able to measure, analyse and share every detail about their lives, and sports and fitness is no different. In recent years, we’ve seen fantastic online resources such as coaching software Training Peaks and ride analyser Strava rise in popularity. When thinking about how we could enhance our user’s experience and increase sports participation, there was no doubt it would come in the form of a digital platform.

With the second generation of the Wattbike Hub, we wanted to go further than data analysis, we wanted to provide real value for our users in the form of a ‘personal trainer in their pocket’. The Hub provides training plans, individual workouts and tests all designed to help each and every user achieve their goals whether they’ve been inspired by the Olympics or they simply want to live a healthy life.

For the younger generation, the Rio Games will be the event which inspires young athletes to represent their country and get to future Games. How will Wattbike be part of this future generation?
At Wattbike, we’re passionate about talent identification and young athlete development. That’s why we’ve partnered with the UCI World Cycling Centre - the coaching arm of the UCI - to identify and develop future stars.

The UCI World Cycling Centre levels the playing field for nations that may not have the resources or facilities that we enjoy here in the UK. In partnership with our sport science team the WCC are close to finalising standard global testing and talent screening protocols for road, track, mountain bike and BMX athletes. The protocols will allow the WCC team to assess and compare data of cyclists from around the world in order to identify exceptional talent.