UAE Team Emirates XRG’s latest edge over the peloton is horizontal. ‘Mattress Gains’, you could say! The team is sponsored by a company called Eight Sleep, who make a product called ‘The Pod’.

Every UAE rider is using the Pod at the Tour. The system doesn’t require swapping the whole mattress — the Pod is a cover, that first over the existing mattress, and connects to an external hub that controls temperature and tracks physiological data through the night. It also a gentle vibration alarm, and if you start snoring, the mattress lifts your head slightly.

Uh… wow. I;m a bit of a technophobe but – this is a want!

Works for couples too, pretty smart. $2999US worth of smart but it won’t be long til AliExpress has a knock off – hoping!

Team Doctor Raaghib Fredericks said: “The Pod is great because it is hot at the Tour now. If it gets too hot at night and the rider starts to sweat, the mattress automatically cools itself down, even before the rider wakes up. The mattress monitors everything: resting heart rate, sleep zones, heart rate variability, breathing rate… You can then adjust your mattress settings based on that data.”

Tim Wellens has the highest sleep duration at 9 hours and 9 minutes, while Isaac del Toro gets thew least, with 7 hours and 24 minutes. 

Tour leader Tadej Pogačar ranked sixth in the team, with a sleep duration of 8 hours and 12 minutes. 

So while the rest of us are still fixated on wattage and VO2 max, the dominant team is quietly mining sleep data. Recovery isn’t a rest day anymore — it’s a nightly data dreamstream!

Sleep tight, Tadej. You’ve earned it.