New Human-Powered World Hour Record

jesterpilot writes "Last weekend, the limit of human propulsion was pushed another kilometer. At the 2006 Dempsey-MacCready One Hour Record Attempts on the Nissan track in Arizona, Fred Markham set a new World Hour Record by cranking 85,4 km in a fully faired recumbent bicycle. This is about 1 km more than Sam Whittinghams 2004 record. Noting Fred's age of fifty years, it seems the boundaries of human propulsion are not even close yet. Read a report of the decisive runs on Rob English' diary."

Comments

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Allowing recumbents in road racing would entirely change the nature of the sport. When riding an "upright" bicycle, riding behind close behind another competitor requires about 1/3 less effort. (Sheltering.)

However, nobody is stupid enough just to let everyone else sit on their wheel for a 200Km race. Instead echelons are formed where riders take turn in front, doing their share of the work. Eventually break groups form, and hopefully the smaller group can organize better and gain an advantage.

Of course, if you're in a break group with all your own teammates, organizing isn't a problem. But most of the time you're with competitors. So you have to work *with* your opponents, yet still beat them. This leads to all sorts of interesting tactics.

If road racing turned to recumbents, such tactics would virtually disappear due to the shelter advantage being reduced to minimal. It would, in essence, become a mass start time trial instead of a road race as we know it today.

This is why the UCI does not allow recumbents: It'd be a different sport.

Re:No F*cking Way

[mpapet]

If road racing turned to recumbents, such tactics would virtually disappear due to the shelter advantage being reduced to minimal. It would, in essence, become a mass start time trial instead of a road race as we know it today.

There is not a grain of truth in any of this.

1. The UCI has a strong sense of tradition that lead it to quickly ban things that don't look like a bike Lemond, Merckx (sp) Gimondi (keep going back...) rode. Recall that the time trial bars in Lemond's era were a controversy and are strictly limited to time trial efforts. National organizations usually follow the UCI at the national level with regional events offering greater flexibility.

2. Like all competitive events, racing equipment is designed to a specification first. Innovation has a tough time making it through any way. Pick your sport, F1, Nascar, Bicycle racing. They all have detailed equipment specs.

3. Wind resistance is the still there if you are sitting in a canopy or not. It will still be the same style of racing. Relatively flat events usually end in a mass sprint. Hilly events usually end up with a tiny lead group and the rest come straggling in for 1+ hours afterwards. Recumbents would make everything faster on average, but that's about it.

OT
What's sad is a competitive amateur (Cycling USA ranked racer) can't go near recumbents for fear of being shunned from the amateur/pro sport. Then you'd see some amazing times. I'm not sure how people would take to racing recumbents as an organized sport, but if Nascar can attract viewers maybe recumbents can if they can simplify some of the race formats.