So for those of you who didn’t watch… he crushed the record by nearly 5 laps… 56.792 km compared to Bigham’s 55.548 km.
And he mentioned that he might try to beat his own record at some point in the future.
And this…
didn’t happen!
I’m glad I didn’t just look it up in the news. I managed to get home to watch it without spoiling and it that was insane. He just kept getting better and better.
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It was very exciting to watch, although like the broadcasters, I too was worried that he “took off” too early. But really that was just compared to Bigham’s progress at that point, not the overall average.
I can see that if it appeared early on that the rider is unlikely to make it, it wouldn’t be very exciting. Like when a sprinter who’s not going for the stage uses an ITT for a training ride… very boring to watch.
But watching the splits and the kph for each lap was definitely exciting!
It’s interesting to look at the wiki page -
Quite a few attempts in the last few years didn’t break the record. I’m not sure what the criteria is for getting listed - maybe I should make an attempt (although it would cost several thousand dollars to get
a biological passport for anti-doping).
Would the purpose of your attempt be getting your name in Wikipedia as someone with a failed attempt? Or are you talking about making a serious run at the record?
In addition to the biological passport, I assume you have to rent the velodrome, get yourself and your bike to the velodrome, and I assume that the UCI folks who are timing it and making it all official don’t work for free either. And that’s just to have it be an official attempt. If you actually wanted to beat Ganna’s record then there’s the equipment and the time & expense of prepping the equipment…
Apparently it is open to amateurs. It would probably only be listed if it was at least 95% of the current record. To pay for the official timekeeping, velodrome etc. would cost big in money but also time (to set up the biological passport)
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Yeah Graeme Obree was an amateur when he did it. He was the one who got me interested in the hour record.
I think Dan Bingham is on the fringes of being a professional and there was Ondrej Sosenka who nobody had ever heard of.
The wiki is interesting. I’d be interested to see how much the best human effort time might be improved. I understand the need for standards for a level playing field for the official record, but experimenting with different riding postures and frame styles to improve aerodynamics is interesting. That record that Boardman set in the “superman position” lasted a while, largely due to the rule change.
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Dan Bigham is a professional track cyclist for Ribble Pro Cycling who works as an engineer for Ineos Grenadiers in addition. Yesterday they were talking about how unusual it is for a team engineer to also be a cyclist in his own right, and how valuable that is to Ineos.
I don’t follow track cycling too much, but Wikipedia tells me that he was on a team that won a bronze medal in the Team Time Trial Mixed Relay at the World Championships and a silver at the Commonwealth Games in the Team Pursuit.
I’m not sure about the mixed relay event… as I said I don’t follow track cycling too much. But I watched the team pursuits in the Olympics so I’m more familiar with that event.
Regardless, a bronze medal in the World Championships seems like nothing to sneeze at. And beating Bradley Wiggins’ one hour distance is certainly nothing to sneeze at either.
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This is an excellent development in world sports. They are doing it in swimming as well - hopefully it will get carried through to the Olympics. It encourages countries to become strong in both women’s and men’s.
Yeah, I assumed it was a mix of men & women and I enjoy those events too. Especially Nick Baumgartner & Lindsey Jacobellis taking gold for the US in the mixed team snowboard cross!
I’m just not familiar with relays in a velodrome. I’ve watched the team pursuits and those are interesting, but not relays.
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