I Cheated At Cycling By Using An Exoskeleton

What happens when you give a cyclist a robotic exoskeleton that claims to provide 1,000 watts of power and pit him against one of the best climbers in the world? We found out on the Tumble, a fierce 4.7km climb in South Wales. Can technology straight out of the future help our host Conor get a win against four-time British hill climb champion, Andrew Feather?

Chapters: ⏱️
00:00 – Intro: A Race Against a Pro
01:10 – The 1,000 Watt Exoskeleton
02:32 – First Impressions: Power On
04:33 – The First Ride
05:04 – The Welsh Alpe d’Huez
05:59 – The Race Begins
07:53 – The Final Push
10:27 – The Results
10:39 – Post-Race Analysis

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This is an exoskeleton which provides a claimed 1,000 W of power. And this is Andrew Feather, one of the world’s best climbers. On a typical day, he’d leave me in his dust. But today, with tech straight out of the future, could I beat him up the Welsh outdoors? Let’s find out. If you’ve watched this channel before, then you’ll probably know who Andrew Feather is. But if you’re new, first welcome. And please don’t forget to hit that subscribe button to stay up to date with all the content we create here. But here is an intro to Andrew to keep you all refreshed and up to date. Andrew Feather is a four times British hill climb champion. At his race weight of 63 kilos, he can sustain 480 W for 10 minutes. If there is a K near you, he probably holds it. His climbing prowess really is like no other. And to go up against this man, you need muscles made of pure steel, which on any usual day, I do not possess, except for today. Okay, I might not have legs of steel today, but I do have legs titanium and carbon in the form of this. All right. This is an exoskeleton, which is um it’s basically like an artificial outer skeleton which you wear like this. Clip it into place. Um so this has a motor here kind of in your hip area and that powers these levers which you you attach to your legs and essentially gives you added power. So, the makers of this claim that this can give you 1,000 W of power. It’s 1.3 horsepower, which is just a huge amount. And that it can reduce your physical exertion by 39%. You look really cool as well. I feel cool. I feel cool. But I think this is going to work, Ollie. I genuinely think I genuinely think this might do it. But you do realize I couldn’t beat Further up this climb with an ebike. Yeah, but that’s the thing. That’s the thing. You were restricted. This unrestricted power straight to my bike. Right. I must admit though, did take a bit of getting used to when I tried this on back at GCM Mega Base. Right. Then the moment of truth. Time to give these things a go. I am so so curious. I feel like I’ve just traveled in time 100 years forward. Let’s get them on. This is my first use, proper first use of them. I’ve been itching to try them on, but I’ve waited. I’ve waited so we can get it get it on the old camera for you lovely lot. This might help me keep up with my kids. Like super dad. I’m going to do the school run in these. Definitely doing the school run in these. I probably should read the instructions, shouldn’t I? I haven’t read the instruction. I’m doing the classic. Just turn it on. Oh, yeah. Oh, you feel that? What on earth? Oh, I’m on max power now. Wow. Oh, you feel max power? You feel max power? Let’s go outside. I want to go for a run. I feel alive. I feel alive. It’s weird. It’s so weird. [Music] It’s weird. That is so weird. Really fast. Oh, thank you. Thanks. You said it look fast. Anyway, now it’s time to see how they go on the bike. Look at the state of you, Connor. And you’ve got you’ve got the this exo appendage that you’re wearing the socks and sandals. You just look like Yeah, I was very just this is just like what is this? The loser world championships. Like what the is this? We’ll see who’s laughing when I win. Ollie, victory will be sweet. I don’t care. I don’t care losing to that. I don’t care. I see he’s laughing. Come on, Connor. Time for walkies. Techno trousers. Ex NASA. That’s what he says in the wrong. First ride. Oh yeah, it’s got it got some power. You can hear it working. It’s definitely giving me something. Whether it’s going to be enough to actually allow me to match Andrew Feather, another story. The climb we’re taking on for our challenge is the tumble in South Wales. 4.7 km with an average gradient of 9.1%. It is essentially the Welsh Alpers. I’ve raced up it many times, although it was before the days of internet leaderboards, so I don’t have a known time, but I can guarantee it’s probably slower than Andrew Feather’s best time of 12 minutes 38 seconds up these slopes. I’m feeling ready. I I think I think I’ve got a good chance. I just think it’s a shame Hank’s not here cuz we could have dressed him up as R2-D2 and he could have been your sidekick. Well, listen, I know you think this is funny, but I’ve tried it for a little bit. It It’s not I don’t think it’s funny. Look at the state of you. It is funny. Okay. Rules are simple. First one to the top wins. Yeah. You ready for it? Do you want to count us in? Yeah. Right. Three, two, one, let’s go. And we’re off. It’s a KY start. Cat and mouse, two climbing whippers snappers faced with technology they can’t comprehend. 300 watts for nothing. I’m not even trying. The tumble is a fearsome climb and it’s lower slopes where the gradients really bite. Probably I’m going to benefit from added assistance the most. How the legs, Ollie? Oh, my legs feel terrible. The battery. I got 35k in these. Got a spare battery in my pocket. Andrew, [Music] I think I’m doing quite well. Barely on the ropes. He may have just recovered from a week in hospital. We’ll forget that. I’m actually doing 500 W. With the steeper initial gradients of the climb starting to hit, the pressure ramps up. Ollie feels the heat and is dropped like I too usually would be at this point. But with extra help, I’m hanging in there. [Music] So far so good then. But out of a hairpin, Feather sees his chance and puts down the hammer. I’m distanced and under pressure. But the fight isn’t over yet. It’s not over yet. I’m feeling it, but not gone yet. I wonder if this is how L Armstrong felt. I work my way back to Andrew’s wheel. I’ve kept myself in contention, but there is still 2 km to go. Andrew isn’t happy about leaving this to a sprint, and the attacks continue to fly. My newfound legs, however, have provided me with a confidence I probably shouldn’t possess. [Applause] It’s provided me with more of a kind of blanket. It’s just given me that that boost to keep on going. 100% is doing something. Obviously still really tough but I am getting a helping hand. No doubts about that. Whether it will be enough to pip and draw on the line. The next couple of K will decide [Music] what 1.3 horsepower. [Applause] Andrew kicks ahead, putting the final piece of straw on this tall camel’s back. I’m done and blissfully unaware of the comeback Ollie is staging behind. The race is still on. Ah, I thought I had him. Feel like I’m on a treadmill. It won’t turn off. with Andrew thinking he had an easy cruise to the top. He is now drawn back into the race behind. Ollie is breathing down my neck. Oh, there’s the top. Andrew’s the top. Final sprint. Here’s the skeleton. ready. But I managed to keep the effort going just and hold him off to the line. Feather takes a comfortable win. Second place for my legs and Ollie in third. An interesting battle, but what do we all think of my legs now? He finished. Hold on, mate. Oh, fair play, Andre. Well done. Well done. Oh my gosh. Well, still look pretty hard. I think I’m going to have to go back to the drawing board. Not entirely. I mean, I can’t dismiss the power boost totally. I had I was getting something there, especially when I was feeling weak on a steeper section. I mean, obviously, you’re naturally a lot more talented than me, but it’s fair to say like all the year if we’ve gone up a hill, I’ve dropped you. Yeah. Yeah. But today like I had you were destroying me steeper ramp. You got out the saddle and I was actually um connected to your power meter by accident and so I could see what you were doing and um yeah I was just out of the back door. I was a bit worried that first steep section for the first 2 minutes I was at like 500 ws. I was like I can’t keep this guy for another 12 minutes and then unfortunately he slowed down. What did you So, you felt good quite then, but it looked like you slowed down cuz I was starting to catch you back up. Well, it’s an interesting feeling because like with an ebike, which I’m used to, you have that power directly at the bottom bracket and it’s like set. But with this, obviously, you have to put your own natural movement. Yeah. Into the exoskeleton and that kind of supplements it. Yeah. So, I was still at my limit, but it’s just like this really hard to detect extra power boost, which is definitely there. But I think I think while it says the motor is up to a,000 W, the biomechanical efficiency of you and the system combined is not 100%. So, there’s going to be significant losses there because you definitely didn’t have even 500 W of boost. Like, no. Cuz if you’d have if you’d had even half of that as boost, you’d be putting him away. Because let’s say you can do 350 watts for an effort like that, right? Yeah. Add on add on 500 watts onto that and that’s just outrageous. I mean, even at your height and weight, you’d be putting Tal Pagatcha into difficulty. Oh, you’d be winning the tour of France. So, it’s nowhere near It’s not even 50% efficient for this. How many watts were you doing for these first couple of minutes? I was over 600. I was going to say, yeah, I was over 600. It felt pretty faint. But that’s But that’s But what did it feel like? It felt great. No, but like did it feel like say 400 or It felt like 400. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I think what I’d say is it allowed you to push for longer? I’d say is that my overriding feeling is like But you still got tired. I still got tired, but I could push and not blow. So I definitely could increase my duration at specific watts. So, I think what we’ve seen is it’s it’s nowhere near sort of 100% efficient, but it’s still powerful enough that I think although a climb is giving you something. I think it would be much more significant on a time trial, even though it’s probably going to have a slight arrow penalty, I think even if it was giving you just 50 watts of assistance in a flat time trial, that would be huge. You know, that would be that would be that would be really massive. It’d be transformative. Well, UCI, you better take notes coming. see that like this video. Um, if it gets, what should we say, 10,000 likes, then we’ll we’ll make Connor do a time trial on the on the legs and get banned by the CTT. Although, I don’t think there’s anything in their rules about cybernetic legs. Maybe if you enter enter a par category, you’ll be all right. I just need to figure out how to get down now because it’s really easy to go downhill. Your legs just keep turning. Yeah. And take it off. And take it off. But it’s been fascinating to get a glimpse into this sort of technology. Thanks for watching. Thanks Andrew for being a good sport and taking part. And um yeah, let’s see where the legs take me next.