A MILLION T O ONE
82-year-old Russ Mantle’s landmark mileage shows that age is a mere number
“By riding 1m miles, Russ is an everyman who’s achieved a feat not everyone could accomplish”
Good news stories feel like a progressively endangered species in 2019’s incendiary news media climate, so it’s essential to celebrate them when they do come along. And in November, 82-year-old Russ Mantle, of Aldershot, Hampshire, delivered what has to be the candidate for feel-good story of the year as he notched up one million miles on his bike - he’s believed to be the first person in the UK to reach, quite literally, this milestone.
Like many from his era, Russ has a paper trail for his million, logging each and every ride he’s been on - the commutes, the races, time trials and tours - in a log book. In the 67 years he’s been recording his rides, he’s averaged a mind-bending 14,700 miles a year - 40 miles every single day. It’s the equivalent of 40 circumnavigations of the Earth, or to the moon and back, twice, with a couple of celebratory laps of the world thrown in for good measure once he’s back on terra firma. A driver, sedentary behind the wheel, will likely clock up less than half of Russ’s musclepowered distance in their lifetime, according to Cycling UK, our national cycling charity who helped publicise Russ’s achievement.
In the men’s WorldTour in 2019, the rider who covered the most ground was Luis León Sánchez, who matched Russ’s 14,700 - except Sánchez’s was in kilometres. If only Russ had lived, like Sanchez, on the continent, in southern Spain - his million would have been measured in metric and he’d have notched it up in his mid-60s, in far more favourable weather. He’d be well on his way to two million.
Russ, still riding his bike and adding miles to his logbook, jokingly (although we’d be foolish to presume that he was) told the BBC that he’ll be close to 2m miles by the time he reaches 100.
Paul Tuohy, Cycling UK’s chief executive, said: “Cycling a million miles is not only incredible, it’s almost incomprehensible. Russ never set out to break any records, cycling is simply a part of his life.
“Cycling UK’s mission is to get a million more people out on their bikes, it’s amazing that we’re celebrating one man’s achievement of cycling a million miles in his lifetime.”
We live in an age of bigger, harder, tougher; of one upsmanship where people feel the need in their endurance challenges to go better than what’s gone before. There’s something to be commended in that - pushing boundaries of what humans are capable of seems to be part of our nature. But there’s something very appealing about the story of an octogenarian unassumingly accumulating one million miles on a bike over the course of a life. An everyman who’s achieved a feat not everyone could accomplish. Perhaps most of all, Russ shows the powers of the bicycle and that age is no barrier.
Like me, you may have marvelled at the de-ageing techniques on show in the new Martin Scorsese film The Irishman, as septuagenarian Robert De Niro rolled back the years to his mobster classics of the 80s and 90s. It was a film that Scorsese had wanted to make for years but needed to wait until he felt the technology was good enough. As cyclists we’ve been well aware of a de-ageing technique for years. It’s called riding our bikes.
“Even when I was in my 60s and 70s, I was doing my highest mileages, so it just shows you that as you get older you don’t necessarily have to do less,” Russ says. “I haven’t really been going for it, the miles have just naturally piled up because I enjoy cycling so much, it’s just natural to be a mile-eater.”
No matter what age we are, the benefits to health that come with riding a bike help us, as Radiohead famously, sort of , sang, to be fitter, happier and more productive. Few of us will make it to a million but we can all be inspired to ride more by Russ’s almost accidental passage to it.