This seasons lack of racing has made cyclists restless and creative. In Norway we had a «distance-war» with the current record holder Jonas Orset didn’t stop until he 1011 kilometre.

I am not going out for that record, but after watching a video of a James MacDonald trying to ride 950k in 24 hour on a velodrome I was tempted to give it a try.

For that reason, I will go out and ride my bike for 24 hours and see how far I get. The goal? At least 767k, in order to take the 24h distance record currently held by Vidar Mehl.

At the look of it, the challenge shouldn’t seem impossible. 767 km in 24h is «only» 32km/h. When I am in aero position my real-world CdA is less than 0,21. To maintain 32km/h on a flat road, with no wind, new tarmac and clean drivetrain I would need only 117 watts. At least that’s in theory. Then we have the peeing brakes, food filling brakes, wind, turns, less than ideal tarmac etc. Not to mention the fact that is very hard to hold a super aero position for more than a couple of hours, not to speak about 24 of them in a row.

My longest ride to date is just over 300km done in a duration of 10 hours. And that wasn’t in strict aero position on a flat road. Anything longer is uncharted territory.

When will I go for it? Just over a week from now, depending a bit on the weather. The venue is not decided yet, but probably a relatively flat loop not too far from Oslo. Any advice on course and 24 hour riding would be appreciated 🙂