Dan Bigham has set a new British Hour Record, beating Bradley Wiggins' previous furthest distance.
The 29-year-old set a new record of 54.723km, nearly 200m further than Wiggins' 54.526km from June 2015 in London.
Bigham used the velodrome in Grenchen, Switzerland, for his effort, a day after partner Joss Lowden set the new women's Hour Record and a few days before the European Track Championships take place in the same venue.
"Actually really enjoyable," Bigham told The Cycling Dane YouTube channel, which livestreamed the event, of how he found the hour. "I'm sure I had a few people scared early on because of the pacing but that was the plan. It's quite scary when you've got to ride it because you know you've got to pick it up.
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"I felt I was on a good one on the warm-up on the track. I knew exactly the time gaps I needed, actually in my target I was supposed to be 27 seconds back at halfway but I was only 18/19. Then I was chipping away and it was really good and I thought this is going to bite me. Then the last few minutes it started to hurt."
Bigham held on though, and achieves a record he'd been thinking about taking on since 2019 before the coronavirus pandemic delayed proceedings, but the Brit used the lockdown period to really hone his training and preparation.
"I had a good mental strategy, chunking it out in time gaps and splits I need to be doing," he explained of the mind games deployed to aid the physical effort. "I'm good at holding my position naturally, it was more taking a good line and staying in control of my breathing, because we found when that goes, my head goes.
"I didn't think about it too much, in practice hours I've had music on seeing if distraction would be a good thing, but to be honest I kept mentally aware for a good 45 minutes, I knew where I was, what was going on, knew what was happening, and that's a really good thing, keeping control of your head."
Bigham could only take on the British record, not the pan-national one currently held by Victor Campenaerts of 55.089km, the Belgian present watching on the livestream alongside fellow riders Charlie and Harry Tanfield, because he's not in the UCI testing pool. His status as a Continental rider means he would have to pay to be in the testing pool himself. Whether he'll now try and go for Campenaerts' record? We'll have to wait and see.
