Bra Boosters Are Causing a Clothing Controversy at the Tour de France Femmes

Bra-Maxxing might be the latest illicit aero workaround of the women’s peloton.

Wielerflits reported Sunday night that several teams at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift have voiced concern over riders wearing over-sized bras stuffed with padding in the quest for free watts.

An artificially inflated chest can create an “aero fairing.” This confers a small but significant aerodynamic advantage to riders hunched low on the bike, particularly in the TT position.

And guess what? Chest fairings are advantageous enough to be banned by the UCI.

The governing body prohibits riders from wearing non-essential clothing and accessories that “modify their morphology” in article 1.3.032 of its rulebook.

Wielerflits reports that teams at the Tour de France Femmes are urging the UCI to check riders for illicit bra-boosting at the crucial 21km time trial on Tuesday.

According to the Dutch outlet, teams are pushing for athletes to be checked immediately after their TT effort by a female juror in a closed tent. The official will be tasked with ensuring riders are wearing no unnecessary padding in their bras or under their skinsuits.

Velo has reached out to the UCI and the women’s riders’ group The Cyclists Alliance for comment.

UCI clamps down on chest fairings … but not Bra-Maxxing?

Riders have been using and abusing chest fairings for years.

Wielerflits reported that inflated chests were seen in the women’s peloton at the Paris Olympic time trial in 2024, and at last year’s Giro d’Italia Women.

In the men’s peloton, Remco Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard clearly rode with a fairing inside their skinsuits at the 2023 road worlds TT and Tour de France TT respectively.

The practice is also rife in Ironman triathlon.

And the practice is as well studied as it has been well used.

Belgian aero expert Blocken has produced many studies on the subject, including a paper in 2024 that found that a large, optimally-placed chest fairing could give a 3.6 percent drag reduction and at least 0.78 seconds per kilometer.

The UCI has recently launched a crackdown on the peloton’s quest to exploit this aero advantage.

It blocked the use of jerseys with internal front pockets earlier this summer. Just days later, notorious aero-fiddler Jan Willem van Schip was DQd from a race (again) for putting a water bottle down the front of his jersey.

The governing body’s concerns over illegal farings extended to the point that commissaires were pulling ice socks out of riders’ skinsuits before they rolled out for the sun-cooked TTT last month at the men’s Tour de France.

The UCI has become more vigilant in checking for non-compliant, aero-boosting clothing in recent years.

However, according to Wielerflits, Bra-Maxxing is still largely unenforced.