Why would any sane person choose to suffer? The answer to this question is a primal one and of particular relevance to society in the current age: control. With chaos and uncertainty creeping from every corner of life, cycling provides us with control over physical suffering; to suffer at our own will provides us the control we viscerally crave. This control then provides us the courage to face uncertainty in life with the confidence that we can handle anything it can throw at us.
There is no challenge within Cycling which more comprehensively embodies this notion than The Hour Record, which represents the only event that pits the rider not against a course, but against Time itself; how far can the rider propel themselves in the span of sixty minutes while also suppressing their nausea as they turn left endlessly?
The cruelty is hard to grasp. As cyclists we suffer, but our suffering is normally proportional to it’s intensity – certainly it hurts to ride harder, but the harder we ride, the sooner the pain will subside. In the Hour, the duration of the suffering is uniform: the effort will last 60 minutes and no amount of increased suffering will shorten it, unless, of course, you believe Al Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, which states that for a body moving at speed, time moves relatively slower than it does for a body at rest. According to Al, then, the rider will experience a marginally reduced Hour measured not by a clock moving with the rider, but by a clock sitting at rest at the side of the track. (While this amount of time is mathematically negligible, it does explain why intervals on the trainer feel comparatively more interminable than intervals on the road.)
Eddy Merckx himself made the following observation after setting the benchmark effort of 49,431 meters in 1972:
The pain was very, very, very significant. There is no comparison with a time trial. There you can change gear, change your cadence, relax even if it is only for a few instants’ respite. The Hour is a permanent, total, intense effort, which can’t be compared to anything else.1
Knowing that the Prophet’s bunkmate was The Man With the Hammer, the triple use of the word “very” is somewhat panic-inducing.
In recent years, the Hour Record has sadly seen a decline in interest, with the last attempt by world-class rider having been made by Chris Boardman in 2000. Boardman was at the center of the Hour’s Golden Era in the early Nineties which saw Graeme Obree kick off a frenzy of attempts to raise it ever higher by first breaking the record in his innovative tuck position as an amateur in 1993. Boardman broke it a few months later, before Obree reclaimed it in his even-more radical Super-Man position. This was a period where Boardman, Obree, Miguel Indurain, and Tony Rominger all traded the record for the better part of a decade, each going ever-farther in evermore innovative riding positions.
The UCI put a halt to the interest in this record by establishing two records, the (Athlete’s) Hour Record and The Best Human Effort. The Hour restricts the equipment to that of a standard double-triangle frame with drop bars, while the Best Human Effort has no such restriction. While the intent was to establish a more equal judgement of the athlete instead of the focus on equipment, it misses the point that advancement, evolution, and innovation are all basic elements of what it means to be Human, and by eliminating these elements from The Hour, they eliminated the appeal in what is our sport’s most primal effort. After all, there were few riders willing to go head to head with Merckx in his time, and so there are few who are willing to do so today.
Chris Boardman stands apart in this regard and indeed went after the new record, which he broke by a whopping 10 meters3. Over the course of his career, he set the record three times, which makes him possibly both the toughest and slowest-learning human currently living; even Merckx declared he would never attempt the Hour a second time, despite having fallen short of his personal goal of 50,000 meters. Boardman describes the Hour in simple, physiological terms: with every push of the pedals, you break down the fibers in your muscles such that for each subsequent revolution, you have a little less functional muscle mass available to sustain your current speed and power through to the end. In a word, devastation. It is not the sort of thing one attempts more than one needs to.
To gauge an effort of this type is perhaps the most pure description of The V; you ride not as hard as you know you can, but as hard as you hope you might. Boardman, on the Hour Record:
You have three questions going through your mind:
How far to go?
How hard am I trying?
Is the pace sustainable for that distance?
If the answer is “yes”, that means you’re not trying hard enough. If it’s no, it’s too late to do anything about it. You’re looking for the answer “maybe”.2
Despite all the training, preparation, and technical advancement that goes into any attempt on l’Heure, it remains a matter of the Human element, one of imprecise precision.
1,2 These quotes are taken from William Fotheringham‘s biography of Eddy Merckx, Merckx, Half Man, Half Bike.
3 It has been broken since by other, lower-profile riders since.
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View Comments
@frank
I can't imagine why you couldn't access Boardman. You rode with the Lion for Merckx sake. Connections big guy, connections.
@Rob
Only yesterday did the the +1 Badge go to @ChrisO, but you're next in line, mate. Well played.
@Souleur
Perfect.
@brett
I'm trying, actually. But haven't been able to figure out the protocol for getting on the track out there. I emailed them (they've no phone number) but haven't heard. I'd hoped to make an announcement for this article, but sadly I'm not able to do so.
Inchamerckx, I will. In my Molteni jersey.
P.S. No wonder you beat me in the track event. I wasn't going nearly that hard. But didn't you take the best time over all of us? Good on ya. I don't know what anyone else's excuse is and it doesn't matter; you took the crown. After a bunch of cigs, no less. Survive on V, mate.
@sgt
Its funny you say this; I thought this same thing on my ride this evening based on some of the posts here today. But the thing is, you'd need an hour-long climb with exactly the same pavement and exactly the same grade (technically that's horizontal, like a graders makes) and perfectly consistent steepness for an hour to get the same effect. There is NO CHANGE in the Hour...no breaks, not change in power, no change in gradient...nothing. Just a fucking sufferfest for an hour, unless you fucking quit because you're a fucking asshole. Period.
@Nate
Try Haleakala. Four full hours of fun. Its the only reason I think I can take even a casual attempt at The Dutch Douche Hour. I bonked at one hour and some, and had 3 hours and some left to go. It was fucking awful.
Stop fucking talking about fucking one-hour climbs, ok? Fucking go ride fucking Haleakala and give me the cliffnotes on when you puked in your mouth and when you puke on your top tube. Those are the only two options.
@Dan_R
Brilliant. Another point Boardman makes in the Fotheringham book is that riding in the drops is way harder than aero bars. On the extensions, you're spreading the weight out and reducing pressure. But in the drops, its all in the forearms. Check out Boardman in this photo (main) and check out the curve in the drop bars going up. That's there to support his forarms and try to make it somehow tolerable.
Its amazing the load that's on your body when you ride a bike. Then you get used to that, and you go hard up a climb and you find that your arms are somehow the weakest link. WFT? Then you train more and they can take it. Then you ride the cobbles and your arms are the weakest link. WTF? Then you trian more and they can take it. The you ride in the fucking drops for the hour with no hoods, no tops, no NOTHING other than the drops for an hour. And you're completely fucked. FUCKED.
Vive l'Heure.
@scaler911
Touche. I am inspired to try. Merci, monsieur.
@frank
I might do that one day. Most I've done is Ventoux which was well under half the duration. Those km markers they put on the famous French climbs that tell you the average gradient for the next kilometer are the work of an evil genius.
@frank
I shall place it in my mind, deeply somewhere, that to quit on a hard climb is not the result of lacking form or it being impossible, but simply due to being a fucking asshole.
Nobody wants to be a fucking asshole; don't be a fucking asshole.
Climb on!
@frank
The don't-do-it due to reputational harm point puzzles me. I understand if you are Eddy Merckx circa 1972 at the peak of your glory why you would not want to fail. But does any one think less of Ole Ritter for trying his damnedest to best Merckx and nobly falling short?
@Gianni
Don't forget the reimagined scene:
http://lunarpoodle.blogspot.com/2011/03/life-of-velominati.html
@eightzero
Haha, superb!