Skip to main content

Inside the weird and wonderful world of 24-hour cycle racing | Martin Love

Riding a bike in circles for 24-hours sounds like a very particular form of masochism – but that’s exactly what the entrants to Revolve24 do. Martin Love explains why

Lindsay McCrae, an ultra-athlete from Inverness with an easy smile and a honed body that’s part rabbit part robot, gives me a steady look and tells me his race tactics: “I’ll ride for five hours, then have 15 minutes off. Then repeat to the end. I want to have less than an hour stoppage in total.” I burst out laughing. Then realise he isn’t joking. He isn’t joking one bit. Big Kev from Berkshire plans to stop for 10 minutes every two hours, while Audrey from Poole aims to ride for 12 hours straight, then stop for an hour… In the bonkers world of 24-hour bike racing, contestants casually pass off feats of extreme endeavour as if they’re talking about a stroll to the shops.

It’s all quite straightforward. The event is the Revolve24. It’s a 24-hour cycling endurance challenge hosted on possibly Britain’s most picturesque motor circuit, Brands Hatch. Riders line up at 3pm on Saturday and start pedalling round and round. At 3pm on Sunday, exactly 24 hours later, they stop. The winner is the person who goes the farthest. You can break whenever you want, but obviously every time you do you are losing distance. Questions arise. Tactics are crucial. Would you go further if you slept for an hour or just kept going?

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Ng940w
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Rico Lewis helped harden up Manchester City’s treble challenge | Jamie Jackson

Guardiola believes advent of the teenage talent sowed seeds of change that turned his side into champions again Mid-January, the Etihad Campus. Before Tottenham’s visit a discontented Pep Guardiola is addressing a Manchester City team meeting that includes Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, John Stones and Ederson. The champions are in second place, eight points behind Arsenal, each having played 18 games. Performances have dipped and so has the attitude of his players. The final match before the World Cup was a 2-1 home defeat by Brentford . Since the tournament, City have beaten Leeds and Chelsea, drawn with Everton and lost their previous outing , 2-1 at Manchester United. Seven points from 15 is not championship-defending form and, when being knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Southampton is factored in, Guardiola can see City’s campaign derailing. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/h8WjbMX
Post a Comment
Read more

Wandsworth escape accused says it was ‘foolish’ to jail him with his ‘skill set’

Daniel Khalife, 23, says he absconded because he was ‘terrified’ of being locked up with dangerous offenders A former British soldier has told a jury he did not hand himself in after he escaped from prison because he was “finally demonstrating what a foolish idea it was” to imprison someone with his “skill set”. Daniel Khalife, 23, told the court he absconded from Wandsworth prison while on remand because he was “terrified” of being locked up with “serious sex offenders” and “terrorists” who wanted to kill him, and that he did not think his imprisonment would be in the public interest. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/vRZHkaw
Post a Comment
Read more

Bodies of Men: the love story taking on toxic masculinity in a time of war

Nigel Featherstone’s new novel tackles traditional conservatism and patriarchy through an unconventional romance How can you be a man and be anti-war? This is the question that Sydney-born novelist Nigel Featherstone, who is a pacifist, considered while he took up a three-month writing residency in a military library. He set out to discover what happens to very different expressions of masculinity placed under military pressure. “Australia does have a very defined, toxic brand of masculinity,” says the bespectacled Featherstone, seated by the window at his local pub facing the railway station at Goulburn, north of Canberra, while men on stools at the nearby bar sink beers and televisions on the walls screen horse racing results. Continue reading... from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2N8piOc
Post a Comment
Read more