Pang Xiaozhong, director of the Science and Technology Development Center at the Sports Science Research Institute of the General Administration of Sport of China, said in an interview on the 9th that there is currently a lack of standardized cycling gear tailored for Asian athletes in the bicycle sports market.
Pang pointed out that cycling as a sport involves high consumption and demanding equipment requirements, with a history of several hundred years internationally, whereas China started relatively late. As a result, China’s cycling gear still lags behind advanced standards. In his view, this gap is mainly reflected in the absence of specialized materials and relatively backward human engineering capabilities.
More importantly, due to the lack of cycling equipment standards tailored to the physical characteristics of Asian athletes, the issue of "Asians riding European bikes" has persisted for a long time, and the resulting performance is predictable.
In response, Hou Fengqi, chairman of "Santic," one of the sponsors of this year’s Tour of Qinghai Lake, said that Asians have different body structures from Europeans, so cycling clothing and gear also have certain particularities. For example, European riders tend to have narrower feet, while Asians have wider ones. Therefore, in such a situation, "using bikes designed for European body types for people with Asian body types naturally won’t yield good results."
For this reason, the development of cycling gear suitable for Chinese and Asian athletes has become urgent. Hou told reporters that Santic, as a leader in China’s cycling gear industry, will work closely in the future with the Sports Science Research Institute and domestic and international scientific research institutions. Based on the physical characteristics of Asians, they will develop professional cycling equipment suited to Asians to help Chinese and even Asian cyclists improve their performance.
Pang Xiaozhong also believes that although there is still a gap, China’s cycling gear level has advanced rapidly over the past decade or so, whether for specialized athletes or mass participation—things have changed dramatically.
Pang said: "Next, we will put the research, planning, and higher-level development of cycling gear on the agenda. I believe China has the capability, our athletes have the capability, our national fitness efforts have the demand, and our suppliers also have the capability to serve cyclists around the world and the Chinese public well. This is our aspiration."
In response, Hou Fengqi expressed confidence that China’s cycling gear level could catch up with or surpass Europe and America within 5 to 10 years, and that cost-performance will be its "biggest weapon" for capturing the market.