Trek Segafredo and CORE step-up their Partnership to drop the Temperature

In 2023, Trek-Segafredo and CORE have reaffirmed their partnership which brings heat management technology and expertise to the Team. Since 2022 both men’s and women’s team riders have used the wearable CORE sensor that accurately measures core body temperature and displays the data live on the bike computer. Riders and coaches then analyse the data after training and races, to drive continuing performance gains.

Josu Larrazabal, Trek-Segafredo Performance Manager, says, “One of the critical aspects that each rider faces when dealing with peak performance is core body temperature. When the body gets hot, the performance goes down. That’s something that coaches have always known, and now we have the opportunity to understand it even better.

“The temperature threshold at which the body gets stressed is very individual. To address this, our first step is to define the profile of the rider; how does he or she react to different heat levels. We compare long steady efforts against shorter or more intense efforts to see the impact. Identifying what happens in the key moments of performance is fundamental to truly understand the rider.

“The second step in heat management is focusing on strategy,” Larrazabal continues. “The way to counteract overheating is to help thermoregulation through cooling. A specific strategy is devised based on the individual response of the rider to cooling,. For example, we account for the cooling of the clothing and the best ways that the rider can use water for cooling and pre-cooling with fans, as is often the case for time-trial races. Effective preparation also relies on heat training for adaptation of the body and continually monitoring the progress of the rider.

“Fighting overheating is about finding the balance between effort, environmental conditions, and cooling. This is an important part of the challenge and using the right tools, like the CORE sensor to get accurate core body temperature readings, is essential.”

CORE performance manager, Chris Blomfield-Brown says, "Our partnership with Trek-Segafredo has provided excellent opportunities to better understand each individual rider and to use these insights to improve cooling and racing performance. Our goal is to support the performance team with our technology to transform data and insights into results.

“It is rewarding working together with the Trek-Segafredo coaches and seeing such a high level of engagement among the riders in understanding their own individual temperature behaviour and applying heat management in their training and racing.”