Road records

[singlespeedscott]

Got laugh when I looked at the article on the first MTB race that was won by a CX bike. A bit like your rail trail records LDR?

[ironhanglider]

Not strictly a road record, but here is close enough.

There was a story in Cyclingtips today that included the words 'World Record' in the headline.

It turns out that some bloke in the US set himself the challenge to ride 100miles as fast as he could. And indeed he did do a creditable effort of 140min with an unmodified bike running a 52x11.

However I remember my time hanging out in the Museum of Victoria (when it was at Museum station) and seeing Oppy's motorpace bike on which he did the 100miles in 99 3/4 min (as was written on the sign at the time) on a 64x13.

I think that it is interesting that the gear Oppy used (133") was not much bigger than this new blokes 127". Oppy's cadence must have been terrific.

My question is, does Oppy's record still stand?


Cheers,

Cameron

[ldrcycles]

Not strictly a road record, but here is close enough.

There was a story in Cyclingtips today that included the words 'World Record' in the headline.

It turns out that some bloke in the US set himself the challenge to ride 100miles as fast as he could. And indeed he did do a creditable effort of 140min with an unmodified bike running a 52x11.

However I remember my time hanging out in the Museum of Victoria (when it was at Museum station) and seeing Oppy's motorpace bike on which he did the 100miles in 99 3/4 min (as was written on the sign at the time) on a 64x13.

I think that it is interesting that the gear Oppy used (133") was not much bigger than this new blokes 127". Oppy's cadence must have been terrific.

My question is, does Oppy's record still stand?


Cheers,

Cameron

I noticed your comment on the CT facebook page, I haven't found anything to suggest Oppy's motorpaced records (and there are a LOT of them, from 1 hour all the way out to 1,000 miles in under 29hrs) have been broken, and breaking an Oppy record is a big deal so it should have easily found coverage.

I don't know if the gearing currently fitted to the museum bike is original, as it was reported in several articles to be 176" ("the highest gear ever ridden in this country") that would work out to something like 84x13. He rode a 108" gear for a 10 mile paced record in 1932, but the average speed there was "only" 62.8kmh. Thrashing away like a demented washing machine was apparently all the rage back then, I've seen quite a few references to gearing that would have meant damn near supersonic pedal speed

It seems like CyclingTips haven't learned the lesson from the Bruce Berkeley situation back in 2015. If someone claims a record, do some research before publishing an article about it.


I enjoy a bit of impromptu car chasing around town, and I've wondered about Oppy's 24hr record of 1,384km. The average is under 58kmh which sounds pretty achievable, if you ignore the small matter of keeping that going for a whole day and night...


For something a bit more down to earth, the weather forecast is looking good for an attempt on the Gympie-Brisbane record this Sunday. The current time is 7hr22m, but that included issues with my front shifting, trouble eating, and a wrong turn that cost me 35 minutes. I'd like to go under 6 hours but that would mean a 31.2kmh average for a hilly 187km and I doubt I have that in me at the moment.

[ldrcycles]

Big news, it turns out Oppy's 24 hour record has in fact been broken!

April 27 1990, Michael Secrest (superhuman ultracyclist) followed a semi with special air shields around Phoenix Speedway to get 1,216 miles, 1,956kms Average speed of 81.5kmh

At that average he would be doing 100 miles in about 1hr58m, but I'll need to do some digging to find out exactly what his intermediate times were.

From the limited details I can find, the ride was certified by the ultracycling association at the time, but they later changed their mind and refuse to recognise any motorpaced records.


https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html



My Gympie-Brisbane attempt went well, despite losing 10 minutes to a flat tyre early on and having completely roasted legs 50km from the finish I took 37m18s off Gympie-Brisbane and took Landsborough-Brisbane by 19m32s. I was shot to pieces afterwards but recovered well and with a northerly forecast again next weekend I'm looking at Kingaroy-Brisbane.

[ldrcycles]

Exciting news in the road record space, Lachlan Morton of the EF Pro Cycling team has just announced he is attempting the supported round Australia record this month! He's setting off from Port Macquarie on the 5th, the current record is 37d20hr45m set by Dave Alley back in 2011. I was lucky enough to see Dave passing Yandina on that ride, and I'm looking forward to meeting Lachlan when he comes up this way.

Lachlan and his team got in touch with the RRAA to check on the record requirements and get feedback on their planned route. I'm happy to say they've got all the boxes ticked. He's targeting a time of 35 days, which means putting down over 400km every single day

Live tracking page is here- https://efprocycling.com/culture/great- ... c3714d87c6

[MichaelB]

Exciting news in the road record space, Lachlan Morton of the EF Pro Cycling team has just announced he is attempting the supported round Australia record this month! He's setting off from Port Macquarie on the 5th, the current record is 37d20hr45m set by Dave Alley back in 2011. I was lucky enough to see Dave passing Yandina on that ride, and I'm looking forward to meeting Lachlan when he comes up this way.

Lachlan and his team got in touch with the RRAA to check on the record requirements and get feedback on their planned route. I'm happy to say they've got all the boxes ticked. He's targeting a time of 35 days, which means putting down over 400km every single day

Live tracking page is here- https://efprocycling.com/culture/great- ... c3714d87c6

Great charity too.

Looking fwd to watching him !

[jasonc]

do we have a start date/time?

[ldrcycles]

do we have a start date/time?

The date is this Thursday (the 5th), I haven't seen a specific time yet.