The Hour Record

No stripes for the Hour Record but it would be a nice trip to Mexico..

Also, I can't do it as I'm not on the UCI bio passport system.

Oh, and I'm not fast enough.. :)

beer passport program?

They'd definitely flag me as suspicious. Actually, my levels of beer are probably about right for an Australian so I should be ok.

Are you Australian?!

No, but my mother and father are. Oh, come to think of it so are my brothers and all my other relatives. Shit, you could be onto something!

Jack Thurston is running a Listener's Hour challenge on Strava...

The Listener's Hour

As described in this week's podcast, the Listener's Hour is a cycling challenge open to all listeners to The Bike Show.

And the challenge is this: to ride your bike for one hour and in that time, to travel further than 35.325km.

Why 35.325km? This is the distance of the first ever hour record, set on the Buffalo Velodrome in Paris by Henri Desgrange in 1893. By riding further than this you'll not only know what it’s was like to have been the fastest cyclist in the world in 1893 but you'll have beaten the man who dreamed up the Tour de France and ran the race during its most brutal, punishing era.

How it works:

Record your hour attempt using the Strava app on a smartphone or a GPS device. Post your rides to the club page. You can have as many attempts as you like.

Attempts shall be on a road course of your choice. Any pedal-powered machine is OK. Recumbents and trikes are more than welcome. You may find it less of a challenge on a super aerodynamic laid back machine, but the choice is entirely up to you.

The start and end points of the course should be within 3km of each other. So no sailing away to glory on a brisk tailwind.

The altitude of the end point of the course must be within 20 vertical metres of altitude of the start point. i.e. no going to the top of a mountain and riding down to the bottom.

No drafting. As this is impossible to police, we’ll rely on your honour here.

There are no prizes (as yet). Even if there are prizes the principal reward will be your own sense of achievement at succeeding at something that will be challenging for all but the fittest, strongest cyclists. Everyone who succeeds in the challenge will be honoured by name on The Bike Show and I'll figure out a way of celebrating the challenge together later in the year. Maybe someone in the bike industry will donate us some prizes. If you can help with that, please get in touch.

The challenge is open to men and women. Women are also eligible to attempt the Listeners Hour (Women Only edition), which observes exactly the same rules, except that the distance is slightly less. The distance for the Women Only challenge will be determined following Dame Sarah Storey's attempt on the Hour Record by taking her time as a percentage of the current men's Hour Record and applying that percentage to Desgrange's Hour Record distance of 35.325km. It’ll likely be around the 30km mark.

Please do share your experiences of trying to go faster. I’m going to be trying to break 35.325km myself. Let’s try to do this together!

Any other questions or clarifications, just holler. We may well need to make things up as we go along.

Good luck and ride fast!

Jack Thurston

Listen: http://thebikeshow.net/how-to-ride-your-bike-faster/

Read: http://www.strava.com/clubs/125924/discussion

Fixed pls

Are you requesting I set a distance on a fix or are you just suggesting everyone should do it fixed, in which case I think you could speak to Jack about a separate category. I could have a "crack" on the Condor...

I'm not sure I want to ride the Condor far enough away from home to actually do this safely. :S

By riding further than this you'll not only know what it’s was like to have been the fastest cyclist in the world in 1893 but you'll have beaten the man who dreamed up the Tour de France and ran the race during its most brutal, punishing era.

By riding further than this you'll not only know what it’s was like to have been the fastest cyclist in the world in 1893

But only if you do it on a track on a Victorian bicycle.

LFGSS Hour Record...

a separate category

HHSB record. Risers, spoks & skinny jeans compulsory.

I'd need to break 42.48 km for a contemporaneous kit record.

Maybe not then.

Just checking, 21.949 in miles?

I told Jack I'm going to try and beat that average speed.. for 24hrs.. to make up for the kit improvements.

Skinny jeans are any jeans on me. Can I use deep crabon instead of spok pleeese meister?

21.95 miles ftw

Why not 22.56?

Because no hipster can push his bike that fast.

How's this for a cunning plan, enter a fast 25 and add a 3km loop at the end to be covered as many times as possible?

Why 22.56?

You only have to beat 35kph - it hardly requires a 'fast' 25 course.

I know that, you know that, I was just thinking of LFGSS bragging rights, not that anyone on here is in the least competitive.....

If I can ride ~526mi during a 24hr I can beat his average for the Hour :)