Alex Dowsett walks away from his Hour Record attempt from the Aguascalientes velodrome in Mexico without any regrets, having raised over £45,000 so far for Haemophilia Society and his own charity, Little Bleeders.
Dowsett, who suffers from rare blood disease haemophilia, rode independently from his team Israel Start-Up Nation in order to raise awareness and money for the two aforementioned charities.
Speaking in the latest YouTube video documenting his Hour Record, Dowsett explained his emotions towards the donations 24 hours on.
"The response since has been quite overwhelming," Dowsett said. "The JustGiving page is now at over £40,000, which is far beyond anything we ever expected, it really is. That’s quite phenomenal."
Despite falling 534 metres short of Victor Campenaerts' record of 55.089 kilometres in the Hour Record, Dowsett seemed content that he managed 54.555 kilometres himself. While he failed to break the record, he Briton is confident that he left everything he had on the track, and couldn't have done anything differently.
"I’m confident that was everything I had, and that was the important thing," Dowsett said.
"I am satisfied with the outcome. I’m not walking way with the World Record but I am walking away with the satisfactory feeling that I had the World Record and that I’ve also shown the Hour Record what I can do. We’re good."
Get The Leadout Newsletter
The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!
The video also captures Alex sitting down with his coach, Michael Hutchinson. The pair analyse his attempt, describing how tactical changes still wouldn't have propelled himself further than Campenaerts managed.
"The goal to start with was to get the first five to ten minutes right, not getting too excited and settling on pace," Dowsett explained. "After that, from 15 to 20 minutes I had a bit of a rough patch but settled down again, then at 30 minutes I was like ‘I can do this, I’m in control'.
"But then at 35 minutes I started to be in somewhat less control. The lap times just started slipping away. I was five seconds up and thinking ‘ok, I’ve got five seconds of a buffer, hopefully I can lose that, regroup, and go again, but try as I might, I just couldn’t get back on top of it."
At that point in the challenge, the 33-year-old's lap times crept up towards the 17-second mark, 0.7 seconds slower than he needed to challenge Campenaerts' distance. However, both Dowsett and Hutchinson seemed content that the Briton's efforts couldn't be faulted.
Hutchinson told Dowsett: "I thought it was a really good attempt, and you should be really proud of it because the margins are really tight."
Thank you for reading 20 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access
Ryan is a staff writer for Cycling Weekly, having joined the team in September 2021. He first joined Future in December 2020, working across FourFourTwo, Golf Monthly, Rugby World and Advnture's websites, before making his way to cycling. After graduating from Cardiff University with a degree in Journalism and Communications, Ryan earned a NCTJ qualification to further develop as a writer.
