The aim behind the initiative is to improve the performance of professional cyclists through an innovative and pioneering sports-technology space. This is one of the first examples of the projects making up the Barcelona City Lab del Barcelona Sports Hub, the testing laboratory for sport tech products and services in urban spaces and sports facilities. Sports centres, clubs, associations, enterprises, athletes and city residents will be able to join in and test out their ideas to confirm the utility, functioning and, ultimately, value-generation of these proposals before they turn them into real and commercial services.

More specifically, the new Horta Cycle Track is integrating three innovative areas that will facilitate the collection of accurate data and consequently help to measure the progress in the cyclists’ performance.

On the one hand, Onalabs’ Ona Sport will be providing non-invasive help to professionals for improving and gaining speed, gathering data continuously on the levels of lactic acid in their sweat as they perform their sport.

The second device is the Bioracer Speed Center , which scans the body so cyclists’ clothes can be given an exact and personalised adjustment. The system is capable of understanding how athletes move thanks to movement-analysis technology. In addition, it also offers bio-mechanical analysis services, a Motion and aerodynamics system, an Aero system for helping cyclists to increase their performance by improving their position on their bicycles and reducing air resistance etc.

Wattbike is the third tool available to the Indoor Cycling Lab’s users. Athletes will be able to enjoy a high-quality indoor training experience, obtain data and analysis tools to enable them to improve their performance and technique and to compare their performance in several training sessions, regarding not just their physical aptitudes but also their pedalling techniques. All that is provided by a power-measuring system incorporated into Wattbikes, capable of measuring the quantity of watts that the cyclist generates.

Athletes and trainers alike will be able to follow the performance and development of each indoor sports sessionlive, through the apps.

The action was presented this morning at the Horta Cycling Track, attended by the Councillor for Sports, David Escudé, the director of the Cycling Track, Pac Tubau, and representatives of the three technology enterprises hat have launched this pioneering space.

David Escudé, the Councillor for Sports, remarked: “The Indoor Cycling Lab is a clear example of the type of projects we have been launching from the Barcelona City Sports Lab. We are putting our network of sports venues at the disposal of technology enterprises with innovative projects so they can verify the feasibility of their proposals and make Barcelona, between us all, a pioneering city in applying technology to the world of sport. As demonstrated by the laboratory we are presenting today, we’re certainly going to be a benchmark for ground-breaking initiatives among the international avant-garde”.

For his part, the technical director of the Horta Cycle Track, Jaume Mas, added: “We have managed to provide it with innovative tools that gather very important data for planning training sessions aimed at improving cyclists’ techniques and physical conditions. Training at the Horta Cycle Track means finding out the shape that each athlete is in and monitoring results

Barcelona Sports Hub

This is a public-private initiative launched by Barcelona City Council, led by the Barcelona Institute of Sports (IBE), in collaboration with Barcelona Serveis Municipals and Barcelona Activa, and now with INDESCAT; with the aim of providing the city with a technology and innovation space applied to the world of sport; to generate synergies between associations, investors, enterprises and entrepreneurs, and to activate and accelerate Barcelona’s sport tech ecosystem, by ensuring that it becomes an international benchmark in this sector.