History in the making and one of the sports greatest moments.
Chris Boardman is now the holder of the most coveted cycling record in the world.
It is the ultimate pure time trial.
It’s incredibly risky because there is no second place. You win or your lose.
What there is is a track – black line – and a clock.
The world hour record measures the distance a cyclist can travel around the track in one hour.
While Olympic distances and events have changed many times over the years the
basic conditions for the hour record remain the same.
Since the first record was set in 1876 on a penny-farthing the hour record has been
regarded as the ultimate test of an individual’s strength and stamina.
The hour record was always sort of like your
blue ribboned record within cycling and all that
the greats .. That’s really what attracted us to it to actually get a name on the – on
the trophy as it were alongside of Eddy Merckx and Francesco
Moser and some you know real all time cycling greats.
The bench mark for the modern day hour record was set by legendary Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx in 1972.
He covered a distance of 49.432 kilometres on a traditional bike.
The record stood until the 1980’s when the introduction of science and technology to cycling launched
a remarkable period of twenty years during which
the record was repeatedly broken.
The man who sparked this trend was Francesco Moser.
Professor Dal Monte had this idea of building
disc wheels and we found a company that worked with carbon fibre and they said “We
can do disc wheels for you”. I broke the record
but it wasn’t particularly hard, I was very well trained. And the 23rd we made another
attempt and I broke 50.808 km with 51.151 km and then
we went home to Italy.
In 1993 two Brits stepped into the arena to take on the record.
The first of these was Graham Obree, riding a hand made steel tube bike with carbon fibre trispoke wheels.
And a radical new praying mantis style riding position.
While Moser introduced new materials and innovative bike design for his record attempts,
Obree concentrated on the aerodynamic aspect of
long distance time trialling.
Twice World Hour Record Holder It’s been my ambition since I was fifteen.
The first thing that inspired me was the World Hour
Record that I would ultimately one-day ride. And the ultimate inspiration for me was Merkxx and Moser.
Especially Moser with his – his infusion of technology, pushing the limits
of aerodynamics and bike technology.
That started a whole year of technological innovation. It
was the beauty of it and the purity and beauty of it. It’s the law of the jungle. It’s
like the ultimate law of the jungle isn't it? Here’s
a track. Ride round it. You break the record and get
all the glory or you don’t break it and you go away and feel like nothing for years.
Obree broke the record covering 51.596 kilometres in a ride that changed his life.
Innovator and Cervélo Bicycle Designer Yeah I think that Graham Obree is really the
example of how innovation can help your performance.
I think that Graham Obree raced
against people who were probably athletically more gifted than he was but with aerodynamics
its ninety per cent resistance; the body is two
thirds of that and you come out with the better body position than everybody else it doesn’t
matter that .. is maybe ten per cent less than the other guy. If you're aerodynamic
resistance is ten per cent less you're the winner.
Hot on the heels of the innovative Scotsman Obree was the second British challenger –
Olympic Champion Chris Boardman who just six days later broke the record on a bike with
carbon air foil tubing, triathlon handle bars and carbon quad spoke wheels.
What appealed to me about the Hour Record was its seeming simplicity. There is a huge
irony in that it just looked like you ride round in circles until someone says stop.
But where it gets complex is you can do that in any way
that you like from a positional point of view from to
within – within parameters equipment point of view the pacing strategy is absolutely
critical with something like this.
And at 10 o’clock this morning Chris Boardman – enormous cheer from a stadium packed
with 2000 spectators, rolls now and the attempt is on for the World Hour Record.
1993 was our first attempt on the World Hour Record and it came off the back of winning
the Olympic Games in 1992.
This is unbelievable. No one has ever been inside 23 minutes at the 20 kilometres distance
in the Hour Record before. Chris Boardman is on a schedule now to annihilate this record.
History in the making and one of the sports greatest moments Boardman now – it’s only
a question of how far can he go. The record
will shortly be his. 57 minutes, 28.749 at 50
kilometres but it’s a record and there's no doubt about that. The gun has gone. Chris
Boardman is now the holder of the most coveted cycling record in the world.
Over the next three years the World Hour Record was broken a further five times on increasingly esoteric bikes.
However the international cycling body the UCI, stepped in to
outlaw Graham Obree’s “praying mantis” style and tightened the rules on approved
bikes and body position.
I think he should get a medal from the UCI instead of having the position banned but
its not easy to be popular when you upset the apple
cart. So I think Graham Obree is everything that’s right about this sport and I think
that his accomplishments and the Hour Record are
really some of the most exciting that we’ve seen in the history of the Hour Record.
In 1996 Chris Boardman broke the record on a futuristic bike designed by Lotus Cars,
using a super man position. This position was designed
by Graham Obree and involved the rider being stretched out to cut the aerodynamic drag.
At this point the arc of technology and
ergonomics had reached its peak.
Now I'd been labelled because of Lotus Bikes at the Olympic Games and then using the
super man position to some good effect as one of the people that was really pushing
technology in the sport of cycling.
And it had really hit in the mid Nineties when there
was all sorts of wacky ideas coming in and it was
Samaranch actually of the Olympic Games who said “this doesn’t look like a bike race
anymore”. And the Union Cycliste Internationale set
about – set about changing the rules to – to wind back the clock a bit to keep a
bike looking like a bike.
It was time for the World Hour Record to return to basics with Chris Boardman making a
record attempt reminiscent of Eddy Merkx’s ride in 1972 on a traditional bike.
Well it was just a mark we wanted to set but it captured people’s imagination and the
UCI got involved very late in the day and decided
to adopt it as the Athlete Hour record.
And the record was eventually broken by just ten metres.
With advantages in technology stripped away the World Hour Record was broken by a
distance of 10 metres a mere 0.02 per cent twenty-eight years after Eddie Merckx set the benchmark.
With the purity of the test preserved by stringent UCI rules what does the future hold for this
prestigious prize in cycling? How far can man go in one hour?
When there are rules there is a way to get to the edge of the rules and still get an
advantage. I mean as the rules get tighter and tighter
the advantage you can find is smaller but still today
you can make a frame within those rules let's say Eddy Merckx’s rules that you know state
that a bike should look like the one that Eddy Merckx rode forty years ago to set his
record within those rules you could still make a
frame that’s a lot faster than the one that Eddie
Merckx actually used.