Dan Bigham smashes the Hour record

Riding on a Swiss velodrome Bigham has set an astonishing new one-hour distance over 34 miles.

- Adam Beckett

Dan Bigham did not just narrowly break Victor Campenaerts’ Hour record distance last Friday, he obliterated it, going further than he had gone in training, further even than he thought he could.

The time trial and pursuit specialist from Staffordshire covered 55.548km in his hour on the track at the Tissot Velodrome in Grenchen, Switzerland, which was almost 500m more than Campenaerts covered in 2019 – 55.089km – or almost two whole laps of the track.

It was more than enough for Bigham to become the sixth Briton to hold the Hour record, beating the British record of 54.723km that he set in October last year. While it is still short of the 56.375km set by Chris Boardman in 1996 (in the subsequently banned ‘Superman’ position), Bigham now holds the UCI official record.

Speaking after the event, he described it as a “bit mind blowing” and “pretty epic”.

While it is always difficult to gauge an Hour record attempt in progress, especially on a livestream without a timer, Bigham looked smooth throughout, and by halfway through was up on the time set by Campenaerts in 2019. He started with a negative split, accelerating later to pass the previous record distance with more than 30 seconds to spare.