Camera manufacturer GoPro "may hit the road through a partnership with Tour de France teams," according to Alex Duff of BLOOMBERG. GoPro spokesperson Isabel Pakowski said the company is in talks with
"some of the cycling squads with a view to showing race footage
from cameras mounted on bikes." She "declined to identify the
teams or discuss possible terms." A move into road cycling, "based around the Tour, Italy's
Giro de Italia and Spain's Vuelta a Espana, would be a change
for GoPro, which has focused marketing on extreme sports." In a pilot project at July's Tour, Team Saxo Bank and seven other squads fixed "86-gram Shimano Inc. (7309) cameras to their bikes during a few stages and posted the images on the Internet." Int'l Cycling Union (UCI) President Brian Cookson said that such footage could become a "commercial opportunity to bolster the 'fragile' financial situation of some teams." Cookson: "The economics of cycling are very challenging at the moment. Everyone sees the commercial opportunities" (BLOOMBERG, 12/3).
