Rob Ainsley
goes on the record
You can’t open a bike mag or web page these days without someone breaking a record. It’s so regular it’s like, well, a broken record.
Something is ridden every week in a new faster way, usually by Mark Beaumont. A new tandem round the world best was set in 2020: 263 days, by Catherine Dixon and Rachael Marsden. Between lockdowns, Marcia Roberts did LEJOG (Land’s End to John o’Groats) and back in a hitherto unmatched 11 days.
No record is safe. In 2017, Tommy Godwin’s ‘unbreakable’ one-year mileage of 75,065 was trumped by Amanda Coker’s 86,573 – 237 miles a day, 365/365 (all on a seven-mile circuit in Florida.) Gethin Butler’s ‘ultimate’ 44-hour LEJOG was toppled in 2018 by Michael Broadwith’s 43 . I took 21 days, though more laden: my packed lunch weighed more than his bike. And Robert Marchand’s onehour-cycling figure of 14 miles in 2017 looks very beatable. If you wait long enough, anyway – it was the over-105 age category.
Perhaps more of us are potential record-breakers than we think. Catherine Dixon and Rachael Marsden are career professionals, more LinkedIn than Strava. Michael teaches maths. Robert was a “gardener and wine dealer”.
Arguably most remarkable is Ian Walker, academic and everyday cyclist, known for his experiments showing drivers passed wider if he wore a blonde wig rather than a helmet. (In fact it was brunette, if you’re thinking of entering RuPaul’s DragRace with a cycling shtick.)
But Dr W surprised a lot of people, not least himself, by entering an endurance event on a whim in his 40s and doing well. Then entering another, trying a bit harder, and so winning the 2018 North Cape 4000. Inevitably, he then fancied setting a world record for something, so he set a new best for Europe’s End to End – Nordkapp in Norway to Tarifa in Spain – in 2019: 6367 km in 16 days, 20 hours and 59 minutes, at 377 km per day. Unsupported.
His book of it all, EndlessPerfectCircles, is great. But competition is not for me. I’m a utility cyclist. My challenge is biking round our local supermarkets to optimise bargains. Keep your Strava KOMs and QOMs. King of the Mountains? I’d rather be Sultan of Special Offers, the Baron of BOGOFs. The only leaders I’m interested in are loss leaders.
Competing for its own sake is not my thing. I dislike people who have to top everything. You’ve done it, they’ve done it faster. Your bike is black, theirs is blacker. However, I heard of an aid worker in Afghanistan who recklessly flouted rules to ride an insurgent-strewn road on a borrowed local’s bike, knowing he’d likely be the only person ever on that segment: KOM forever. I have guilty admiration.
Everesting’s vogue doesn’t interest me either. To climb its equivalent height here in York, where the 18m ascent to the water tower in Acomb is as hors catégorie as it gets, I’d have to do it 492 times. Even Amanda Coker would hesitate at that.
Many books about record rides are tedious pageturners. But it’s possible to set records without winat-all-costs misery, without distancing those close to you. Ian’s liberation of his inner competitor was clearly positive: his book lucidly describes the elation of his experiences. Podcasts with Rachael and Catherine attest to their focus, but also the rewards. They clearly enjoyed their odyssey, as did friends and family, following it at home.
Their examples may inspire you. They inspire me. While Ian was setting his record, I was noodling around Yorkshire, having cakes and the odd pint. For his next record attempt, I’ll noodle round Yorkshire having cakes and the odd pint, but also follow his progress every day on Twitter. And maybe target a ‘personal best’ for my supermarket circuit.
“Keep your Strava KOMs and QOMs. King of the Mountains? I’d rather be Sultan of Special Offers...”