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Wired explains why riding 60km in one hour is almost impossible

how fast can humans ride a bicycle and what is the hour record for men and womenScreen capture from Wired's video.
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The current hour record for men is held by Sir Bradley Wiggins with a distance of 54.526km (33.881 miles), set on June 7, 2015. For women, it’s held by Vittoria Bussi with a distance of 48.007km (29.83 miles), set on September 13, 2018. Now, Wired explores the power output required and other physical fitness math (as well as some equipment selection) to see if humans are ever going to be capable of cracking 60km in one hour.

Because science.

Check out the full article on Wired.com, which dives into some of the how, why and what of the current hour record attempts and tech. And you can dig into the history of the hour record on Wikipedia here.

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Klaster_1
Klaster_1
5 years ago

I went to read the linked article, but disappointingly it was all “uci this, uci that” and not a ingle mention of faired recumbents. Wikipedia lists results well into 80km, so the title statement is misleading at best.

TheStansMonster
TheStansMonster
5 years ago
Reply to  Klaster_1

Try “recumbentrumor.com” instead. “elliptigorumor.com” may have some interesting stuff as well.

Celest Greene
Celest Greene
5 years ago
Reply to  Klaster_1

Weird, competitions have rules?

JNH
JNH
5 years ago
Reply to  Celest Greene

When you’re dealing with the UCI competitions have rules, then have different rules when convenient to make sure the right guy wins.

Bob Log
Bob Log
5 years ago
Reply to  Klaster_1

Well… the article is about the UCI Hour Record, which is kinda UCI this & UCI that, seeing as how it’s their thing and all.
HPVA would be for faaired recumbents & I believe they are into the 90kph range for an hour.

craigmedred
5 years ago

fake news!
humans can pretty easily ride 60K in an hour on a bike. the problem is doing on it a bike configured to certain rules. the rules could be changed to make 30K impossible, too.
define the”legal” bike as three wheels with the front wheel no larger than 10 inches and directly connected to the pedals with a total overall bike height of no more than 24 inches. let’s see how many K Wiggo can crank out on that puppy.
meanwhile, i’m so tired of reading self-centered, self-important I-I-I stories posing as journalism that i’m boycotting Bike Rumor for a while for baiting me into reading that piece of shit. i actually went there thinking it was going to contain something more informative than a six-year-old’s knowledge of aerodynamics and wattage.

Greg
Greg
5 years ago
Reply to  craigmedred

Good bye snowflake

Celest Greene
Celest Greene
5 years ago
Reply to  craigmedred

You’ll be missed.

blahblahblah
blahblahblah
5 years ago
Reply to  craigmedred

dont let the door hit you on the way out

Haromania
5 years ago
Reply to  craigmedred

We all wish you good luck in your future endeavors.

Eggs Benedict
Eggs Benedict
5 years ago
Reply to  craigmedred

Toodles.

Justin
Justin
5 years ago
Reply to  craigmedred

Bye felicia

silverlining
silverlining
5 years ago

It’s nice to see that all five people who care about the hour record weighed in with their expert analysis.

Brigid Feeny
Brigid Feeny
5 years ago

There has never been consistent rules . The UCI seem to adopt in a lot of cases will gain them the most publicity and gain them back door profits .

Fred Gravelly
Fred Gravelly
5 years ago

Not one mention of “gravel” here… What’s going on? Are “UCI 60km per hour” bikes the new “gravel bikes”??

bryan
bryan
5 years ago

I didn’t realize the hour record struck a nervenwith so many people… I saw the video. Well done and pretty interesting. The host appears pretty comfortable. Maybe not a cyclist but rather a triathlete?

chris
chris
5 years ago

Who knew recumbent fan-boys read bikerumor??

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