Hour Record
Merckx set the hour record in 1972. On 25 October, after he had raced a full road season winning the Tour, Giro and four classics, Merckx covered 49.431 km at high altitude in Mexico City. The American writer, Owen Mulholland, wrote:
At 8:56 exactly, Eddy Merckx began his great ride. A bell was sounded each lap. If he were on schedule he should be crossing the start line as it sounded. After the first two laps Eddy was a quarter lap up! Giogi Albani, who had the job of standing where Merckx actually was when the bell was rung, had a hard time keeping up! Merckx's first kilometer passed in 1m 10s and five kilometres in 5m 55.7. Already Eddy was 14 seconds up on Ole Ritter's record to this point. Onlookers couldn't believe their eyes. A second five kilometres in 5m 58s obliterated Ritter's 10 km time by five seconds. Ritter's 20 km time was eclipsed by 11 seconds. And remember, Ritter had set his records on a special ride separate from his hour attempt. Compared to Ritter's hour pace, Merckx was 35s ahead at 20 km. Albani urged Merckx to slow a bit, and he did, dropping to a 6m 7s per 5 km pace for the next seven five-kilometre segments. Around 35 km Merckx showed signs of being human. He fidgeted on his seat and the grimace on his face revealed the superhuman effort he was making. There was never a question of his taking the record; the only question was by how much. Far from fading, his last two kilometres were reeled off in 1m 13s and 1m 12s. Still, he could barely speak when he first dismounted. Pictures of the moment show his face a mask of pain. It wasn't long, though, before Eddy regained his normal composure and was able to answer questions.
The record remained untouched until 1984, when Francesco Moser broke it using a specially designed bicycle and meticulous improvements in streamlining. Over 15 years, various racers improved the record to more than 56 km. However, because of the increasingly exotic design of the bikes and position of the rider, these performances were no longer reasonably comparable to Merckx's achievement. In response, the UCI in 2000 required a "traditional" bike to be used. When time trial specialist Chris Boardman, who had retired from road racing and had prepared himself specifically for beating the record, had another go at Merckx's distance 28 years later, he beat it by slightly more than 10 meters (at sea level).
Read more about this topic: Eddy Merckx
Famous quotes containing the words hour and/or record:
“If a man would allot half an hour every night for self-conversation, and recapitulate with himself whatever he has done, right or wrong, in the course of the day, he would be both the better and the wiser for it.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Unlike Boswell, whose Journals record a long and unrewarded search for a self, Johnson possessed a formidable one. His life in London—he arrived twenty-five years earlier than Boswell—turned out to be a long defense of the values of Augustan humanism against the pressures of other possibilities. In contrast to Boswell, Johnson possesses an identity not because he has gone in search of one, but because of his allegiance to a set of assumptions that he regards as objectively true.”
—Jeffrey Hart (b. 1930)