The Merckx hour record is no more, the UCI announced on Thursday. Cycling’s governing body will ditch the 1972 mark and its bike-design rules in favor of a single, unified hour record using equipment regulations borrowed from modern track pursuit bikes.
Czech rider Ondrej Sosenka’s record of 49.7 kilometers will be the men’s mark to beat, as it is the farthest distance attained using a bike and position that are legal under current UCI pursuit bike regulations. Leontien Ziljaard-Van Moorsel holds the women’s record at 46.065km.
American Colby Pearce set a distance of 49.8km in September of 2013. Pearce was attempting to take the American “aerodynamic record,” the anything-goes category, from Norm Alvis. The Olympian didn’t run an anything-goes setup, however; his bike and position were UCI-legal, checked by UCI commissaire Randy Shafer. This attempt was not mentioned in the UCI’s press release on the rule change.
Any hour record attempt from today forward will be bound by the regulations governing endurance track equipment and position at the time of the attempt.
I saw this, yes you may be the fastest but you will never be able to compare yourself to the greats,
Well unless gassed out of your brain on gear and a steel bike
He used to take a kids cycling clinic, and his advice, as I remember it, was “get on your bike and go as hard as you can for 30mins everyday”. I think he advocated “all out for an hour” as you got older.
