- Eddy Merckx, widely regarded
as the greatest cyclist of all time.
He won everything.
His victories include sprints, time trials, summit finishes,
an unequaled 11 grand tours, all five monuments,
three World Championships,
pretty much every major one day race
and extensive victories on the track.
I on the other hand, I once won a raffle
and I still have my 50 meters swimming badge, as well.
And while I can ride a bike,
I can't ride one anywhere near as well as Eddy.
Truth be told, I'm not even the fastest in my family.
Merckx's list of achievements don't end there though.
In 1972, he took on the hour record.
A beautifully simple challenge.
How far can a human travel around a velodrome
in just one hour?
I mean, it was Eddy Merckx, so naturally,
he set a new world record 49 kilometers 431 meters.
However, what makes Merckx record all the more impressive,
is that he did it on this.
This is the very bike that he used around tubes,
steel, frame, with drop bars
and no real arrow features to speak of.
It's a custom made Colnago
that was designed by Ernesto Colnago himself.
And back in 72, this was cutting edge.
It took 200 hours to make and it weighed,
just 5.75 kilograms.
I mean, it's amazing, but since 72,
by technology and equipment, has advanced insurmountably,
so much so that the record
now stands at 55 kilometers and 89 meters
set by Victor Campenaerts in 2019.
They've got me thinking, if I use the latest and most modern
aero tech, Sports Science, expert coaches,
latest recovery methods and training, could,
a genetically unremarkable individual, (coughs), me,
beat the greatest of all time, Merckx?
(upbeat music)
I'm going to find out.
On the 17th of February, I'm going to put myself on the line
and have a go at the hour record and see,
if I can beat Eddy Merckx.
While the prospect of riding around in circles
as fast as you can for an hour is fiendishly simple,
once you actually break it down,
it's deceptively hard.
If a regular guy like me is going to
ride 49 and a half kilometers in an hour,
I'm going to need all the help I can get.
So my logic, is to identify the challenge,
and then identify the challenges within it,
and surround myself with the experts and the best people
and the best equipment possible,
in order to overcome those challenges.
So step one, I'm going to need a coach, a blooming good one.
I decided to reach out to Neal Henderson.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, he's a sports scientist
and world class coach to professional athletes.
Neal is the head of the Sufferfest Sports Science Division
and founder of Apex coaching and consulting,
in Boulder, Colorado.
And he also happens to coach some bloke called Rohan Dennis.
In all seriousness, he actually coached Rohan Dennis
and Bradley Wiggins, two hour record success.
Neal also suggested we recruit the expertise
of his fellow coach Mac Cassin, who as a physiologist,
would be able to provide invaluable insight
into how we can adapt my physiology best,
to the demands of riding in a circle for an hour.
Before we went any further,
Neal asked me to perform a fitness test.
This was to assess where I currently I'm at
in terms of my fitness, but also,
determine if there was any realistic chance
of me challenging the countable.
(techno upbeat music)
The test is the Sufferfest 4DP Full Frontal.
This is a much more comprehensive and sophisticated test
and a standard 20 minute FTP balls to the wall effort.
And you may remember Lloyd
actually undertaking this same test
when he did, his how fit he could get,
on 4-Hours A Week series.
It will tell Neal and Mac much more about my physiology
as it comprises of a couple of all our
seven second max sprints, followed by,
a five minute max effort, five minutes rest
and then it's straight in,
to a 20 minute full gas FTP effort,
with a tasty, one minute max effort for dessert.
Yum yum.
The rationale behind this, is to find out my anaerobic,
neuro muscular, maximal aerobic,
my functional threshold powers.
And armed with this information, Neal and Mac,
will be able to assess if I have what's required
and also tailor my training going forwards.
In addition, the all at maximum of five minute effort
that comes just five minutes before the 20 minute effort
should drain my legs anaerobically
giving a much more realistic FTP value.
(techno upbeat music)
It's 20 minutes, it's going to be hard now,
after that five, so no sprints.
(techno upbeat music)
That was horrible.
I feel like I'm much younger.
(techno upbeat music)
I'm so glad that's over.
I messed up the minute effort at the end, my pedal came out,
he changed the fleets.
I was going too hard.
So make sure Neal, knows that,
because I don't fancy doing the whole test again right now.
But Neal is going to have a look at the results
and then, he will use that to determine
how we set up the power and the training going forward.
So I'll have a call with him later on.
That's bloody hard.
Now, if you just enjoyed my deposits
into the bank of pain faces,
please give this video, a thumbs up.
My results for the test, were as follows.
So my sprint was, abysmal,
760 watts five second power,
but in truth, I've done no sprinting all year,
so it's kind of to be expected.
My five minute power that was better,
that was 376 although that is lower
than what I'd expect on the road
but I kind of, that's kind of normal Turbo trainers
as to be expected.
My 20 minutes was all right, 288
and my one minute power was messed up, because I,
as you just saw accidentally unclipped
during that, sorry.
Now with all this, the results classify me,
as a pursuiter, which is interesting.
I mean, Rohan Dennis and Bradley Wiggins were pursuiters.
Perhaps there's hope yet, but,
I'm going to go chat to Neal and Mac now
and see what they can assess from these results
and also my previous training files
from the last few years as well.
Mac, Neal, good to see you both.
Thanks for having the video call with me.
So I've done my 4DP test.
Give me the good news and the bad news.
(both laughing)
What does it mean?
- Like we wanted to see where you're at
because we know with obviously with our record,
the goal was to get, right, your power,
basically as high as it can go.
The training you're going to do for that
really depends on where your starting point is
and that's what's really great about
starting with this more complete profile.
- Something that didn't jump out to us,
as we look through these values is cadence.
So if you think about the hour record,
and what happens on the track,
well, you're going to be on a fixed gear bicycle
and there isn't going to be no shifting.
There's going to be no coasting and so,
cadence is actually a pretty critical factor.
In your peak neuromuscular power,
you did exceed one horsepower, so you did 760 watts,
which you know, one horsepower is 746, so good on you.
Your average cadence for four and five second effort
was 105 RPM, which is okay.
Not super fast, you're going to have to be averaging
pretty close to that for the full hour,
so instead of for five seconds, you're going to have to do that
for 3600 seconds at a, you know, a little less,
well, less than half an hour.
So, keep in mind that sprint power,
in most humans, you know, hit peak power
between 100 and 130 RPM,
so you're on the lower side of cadence now.
So, we're definitely got some work ahead of us
in terms of being able to produce power at a little bit
higher cadence for you and your anaerobic capacity
final minute or so or the 47 seconds of it,
you did average 87 RPM, so a little bit
of a bounce back on that.
So your training and timings, I think we want to you know,
kind of utilize, you know,
you're heading into the winter months here
and so we're going to be doing a good bit
of your during the week, training Monday through Friday,
a bit more in the indoor on the kicker,
and doing these kind of specific efforts
on the TT bike in that position.
And so comparatively during the week,
your volume may be a little bit lower, though,
we're going to introduce some two days sessions for you,
which will also be, you know,
there's some potential adaptations
that we can gain from those and in how we play those out
and implement them and then the weekends
will be a little bit longer in general, you know,
you're not going to be doing six or eight hour rides, no.
Don't worry, not epic, but you know,
you're going to be doing some longer rides
and we'll have you get out there with the group
that the with the chain gang that you have on Saturdays,
not every week, but it'll be part of things.
Let's see, we mentioned a little bit come to the strength,
how about yoga and mental training?
Have you kind of delved into those areas
with your training in the past with any specificity
or just kind of?
- No, not with any specificity at all.
I've just sort of doubled in a bit of yoga
and again when I felt a bit stiff.
But I'm, yeah just to stretch out and things like that.
But yeah, I'm open to it,
I feel like I need a bit of a stretch,
especially if I'm going to be getting into that
position for a fair amount.
- It's great to be able to get scrunched up
and hold a very nice air position
on a trainer for three seconds,
but as soon as you need to do that for a full hour
with the stability component
of actually riding outside of the console.
Quite a different task.
- Well, at this point,
if we're looking at about 12 weeks out,
we are just over 5000 hours away from your one hour attempt.
So, we got to little bit of time to work with,
but not much time to waste.
So we're really looking forward to getting you going
towards a scene if you can exceed the great Eddy.
- Cool, right.
So, I guess I'll check in with you guys next week.
- Yes.
- We'll crack on with the training, from here.
Right.
Thanks, guys.
I'll see you later.
Good talking to you.
Bye bye.
- Bye.
- So, the good news is that Neal and Mac
have done some math and they reckon
that based on my results, if I can get fitter,
more aerodynamic, improve my flexibility,
so that I can get the power out in that TT position,
with a higher cadence, there is a chance that I can do this.
Now, they also say that Merckx is estimated
to have averaged around 400 watts
which is remarkable in itself but even more remarkable
when you consider he did it at altitude,
which makes that feat much harder.
I won't be at altitude, however Mac and Neal
calculated that if I can get sufficiently aerodynamic,
I'll have to average around 310 watts.
Now that is not much for a pro cyclist,
it might not sound much to you, but trust me,
for me, that's a lot.
Performing this initial testing
and chatting to Neal and Mac has highlighted
the mountain that is ahead of me.
Even with all the best help in the world,
this is likely to be the hardest physical endeavor
I've ever undertaken.
So the first step from here is for me
to crack on with training and get used
to riding a higher cadence and putting the power out
in an aerodynamic TT position.
I'll also be doing some arrow testing
to get my position optimized so that my drag coefficient
can be as low as possible, as that,
is going to be really important.
My training going forward, is going to be a mixture
of outdoor and indoor and through Neal and Mac,
Sufferfest have kindly integrated their workout
into my training.
This is ideal for me, because like many of you,
I work during the week nine to five
and need to be time efficient and so,
indoor workouts are ideal for that, as, well my job
believe it or not, is mostly office based,
in GCN Megabase HQ, that's its official name.
Just in my pain cave at the moment
and literally a lot of time here.
And if you'd like to follow my training plan,
then you can do, but I will be doing quite a bit
as much as 16 hours a week and I appreciate
not everyone wants to commit that amount of time.
But don't worry, regardless of how much time
you want to commit, you can still do your own,
Hour of Power challenge.
Simply go on the Sufferfest
and do the 4DP Full Frontal test.
And then set yourself a target, can be anything,
just to improve your FTP,
maybe target a specific time trial or race
or maybe you just want to do a PB on a particular forum.
Doesn't matter, just do it and get involved
and use the #SuffHourofPower.
There's also a really good 10 week Time Trial prep plan
built into the sufferfest as well.
And the great thing about the sufferfest,
is that it tailors the plans
to your individual power profile.
It's not just a fitness test.
So to put this in perspective, what this means,
is that if I did a standard FTP test
and had a plan built around that,
then as we've established in this video,
my sprint prowess, is well below average.
(laughs quietly)
It means that on a standard FTP test,
the sprint intervals and the neuromuscular intervals
that it would set me, would be far too hard for me.
I wouldn't be able to complete them.
Just out doing some training in the morning.
I'm under no illusions believe me
when I say how hard a challenge
I think they say is in.
How hard it's going to be for me.
Every person I've spoken to start an hour record before
they all say the same thing.
Don't do it.
It sounds savage, even Eddy hurt himself.
He reckoned he took three years of his life.
Ridiculous, but, you know I'm nervous,
but nothing worth achieving is easy
and I'm going to give this my best shot.
I'm going to throw myself into it.
So, I'm going to crack on with my training
and get a bit more arrow, my favorite thing.
In the meantime, if you'd like to follow my progress,
and all of my workouts, including the strength and yoga work
that I'll be doing flexibility,
they're going to be posted on my Strava
and there'll be updates on Instagram too.
So there'll be links to those in the description below.
We're also going to do weekly vlog updates in the GCN Show.
So, subscribe, hit the bell.
Hopefully, I'll see you soon.
Wish me luck, I'm going to need it.
Bye.