A few weeks ago I wrote a column about pre-cooling for improved race performance. Top road racers Levi Leipheimer and Tejay Van Garderen used pre-cooling techniques before the Vail time trial at the USA Pro Cycling Challenge event.

I was near the 300 meter mark on the hill and caught this shot of Leipheimer shortly before he won the time trial and set a course record of 25:47.

When I went home and watched my recorded live coverage, what I noticed is that Leipheimer was wearing a pre-cooling vest during his warm-up.

With a bit of research, I found the vest is made by Game Ready. You can find more information about Radio Shack uses and the various uses of this system at this link.

Tejay Van Garderen appeared to be wearing a pre-cooling system as well, though I can’t find the manufacturer of the apparent gloves.

When preparing for the Olympic Games, I recall a presentation by a company named AvaCore. Though I don’t think Tejay’s glove is manufactured by AvaCore, hand cooling is used due to the heat dissipation characteristics of the human hand (and sole of the foot).

None of this was covered on the one-hour show, so I was glad to have the live version recorded.

Cool! Literally.