‘I couldn’t walk afterwards’ - Cyclist smashes 24-hour city bike record

A London cyclist has broken an unofficial record for the distance travelled by Santander bike, commonly known as a Boris bike, in 24 hours. 

Thirty-seven-year-old Will Bright covered 212.47 miles (341.93 kilometres) around the capital city last month, starting at 8am and riding through the night. 

Speaking to Cycling Weekly, he described the experience as “absolutely brutal”. 

“The Boris bike is notoriously heavy and the gears are awful,” he said, "and then cycling around London, you’ve got hills and traffic lights and all that. It was just incredibly tough, and also hard mentally.” 

No stranger to cycling challenges, Bright, who works in advertising, had just returned from a 4,500-mile ride from Kazakhstan to his home in South West London. Why did he then decide to take on the Boris bike record? Well, because he had good legs. 

“I got back and thought, ‘Let’s just have one shot at trying to do this',” he said. “I had the initial idea maybe a couple of years ago and I started training for it. It was so hard to be pedalling for such a long distance and a long amount of time. I only got to 85 miles, and I was just destroyed by it.” 

As the record is not officially recognised by Guinness, Bright scoured the internet for the distance to beat. The benchmark, he discovered, stood at a colossal 193 miles, and on a sunny day in August, he set out to beat it. He strapped a handlebar bag and a cycling computer to a Boris bike, and began turning the cranks. 

“When I had done 100 miles, I had been going for 10 hours or something, and realised I had to do that whole thing again,” he said. 

Instead of plotting a route, the 37-year-old explained, “I just went where I fancied". He stopped regularly at his home for food and toilet breaks and, at points, resorted to simple circuits to help hike up the mileage. 

“God knows how many loops I did of Battersea Park. Maybe somewhere between 40 or 50 loops," he laughed. 

Day then turned to dusk and night fell like a blanket over the city. As he rode on, Bright enjoyed seeing the changing scenery of London, the crossover of drunk people staggering home, and delivery drivers going about their morning route. 

How did he feel the next day? “Not good,” he said. “I couldn’t walk. 200 miles on any bike is a serious distance. I’ve only done that a couple of times on a normal bike." 

The challenge ended up costing Bright £77 in hire fares, charged for each 30-minute interval that passed. “I did talk to Santander about getting a bike [for free],” he said. “But they weren’t interested. Unsurprisingly, they get a lot of requests for bikes for charity and fundraising, so they didn’t want to. But that’s fine.” 

Between his Kazakhstan ride and Boris bike record, Bright has raised £3,348 for Cancer Research, the Wales Air Ambulance, and the Army Benevolent Fund.