The helmet and protector specialist POC is taking the biggest step in its still young company history: With the AVIP concept, the Swedes are entering the road bike stage with a portfolio of racing bike helmets and a complete clothing line. In addition, POC offers special road glasses and an independent safety system.
Last year marked the launch of the launch of the time trial helmet "tempo" represents the beginning of the path that POC is now taking. With helmets (Octal, Octal Aero), goggles (Do Blade) and a complete clothing collection (Essentials) in the usual clean design, POC will be offering road bike equipment from head to toe from next spring. “We have always viewed the road bike scene as a natural next step in our development”, POC founder and CEO Stefan Ytterborn explains the strategic decision for the new segment: “Our intention was to develop new solutions, ideas and innovations for improved security, increased protection and increased performance. The result is AVIP, a vision created in collaboration with some of the best scientists in technology, aerodynamics and medicine.”
In order to be able to realize this comprehensive vision, the WATTS Lab with a special R&D department was founded in addition to the existing POC Lab, which was also joined by the two performance specialists Robby Ketchell from Slipstream Sports and Pontus Wettrell from Semcon. In order to enable better performance with lower energy consumption, all new POC products have been optimized and tested in the wind tunnel. The entire AVIP concept was born thanks to numerous research and studies, ranging from colors and contrasts, visibility, road psychology to aerodynamics and digital technologies. This stands for four elements that reflect the core of the POC vision:
- Attention: To draw the attention of other road users with all five senses - individually or combined - in milliseconds
- Visibility: Optimizing your own visibility in a wide variety of situations and scenarios through the interplay of colours, contrasts, patterns and movements
- Interaction: Improving communication between road users through modern technology
- Protection: Keeping the risk of injury in the event of a fall as low as possible is POC's basic philosophy
With the knowledge developed from the studies, POC then designed a special color concept consisting of fluorescent orange and high-contrast optic white and navy black. A light color can reflect up to 90 percent of a color on the visual spectrum. Fluorescent colors, such as those used in high-visibility vests, reflect between 200 and 300 percent. Some studies have shown that this can detect objects up to 5,5 times faster. A cyclist with fluorescent clothing, for example, is recognized by a car driver as a road user at a distance of 670 meters, while a cyclist in dark clothing is only noticed at a distance of 120 meters. Recognizing the cyclist as such and not just as an unidentified object as quickly as possible is also an essential goal.
Contrasts are also important here: on the one hand, colors that stand out from the background and, on the other hand, those that differ from directly adjacent colors. In addition to Fluorescent Orange, Optic White, which is diametrically opposed to many colors, and Navy Black, which offers a strong contrast to these two colors, were selected for this purpose.
In order to increase the correct and fastest possible assistance for cyclists even after an accident, POC has developed its own information system. The ICE Tag is a QR code on the helmet that contains medical information about the cyclist such as name, age, blood type, allergies, etc. This can be scanned with a smartphone and thus contribute to optimal emergency assistance. In addition, POC cooperates with the company ICEdot, which has developed a crash sensor with the help of which cyclists who have had an accident can be independently located via GPS.
The complete AVIP concept with helmets, eyewear and apparel collection will be presented to the public for the first time from August 2, 103 at the Eurobike (Hall B28/Stand 2013) in Friedrichshafen.
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