British rider breaks three hour barrier for 100-mile solo ride

A British rider has put in an unbelievable effort to break the three-hour barrier for 100 miles. 

Jonathan Shubert, who races for Artic Aircon Racing Team, took on the 100-mile record from Milton Keynes to Norwich on Monday (November 2), smashing his own fastest time.

Last month, Shubert took on the same route in wet conditions and set a new provisional record for 100 miles with a time of 3-08-15, but just 12 days later he gave another attempt.

This time with an ideal tailwind the whole way and sunny weather conditions, Shubert smashed his previous time to set another provisional record of  2-57-59, the first ever 100-mile ride in under three hours. 

Shubert has shared his ride data on Strava, which reveals he held an average speed of 54.3km/h (33.47mph) while pushing around 295 watts normalised for the duration. 

He also set an amazing amount of KoM times on the Strava segments, topping the leaderboard on 39 different stretches of road. 

The ride has already been flagged by some suspicious Strava users, who may have mistaken Shubert’s ride for a car journey.  

Michael Broadwith, the current holder of the Land's End to John O'Groats record, has shared an insight on Twitter into the ride.

Shubert rode the equivalent of 10 back-to-back 10-mile time trials, all under 20 minutes.

His fastest 10 was number four, which he did in 15-57 - faster than the 10-mile time trial record of 16.35, set by Marcin Bialoblocki in 2016.

But it wasn’t all a smooth ride, as Shubert suffered a mechanical with his rear derailleur early on in the attempt, and to avoid dropping his chain he was forced to ride the entire effort in one gear, which he thinks could have cost him up to six minutes. 

The previous record, before Shubert’s first attempt last month, dates back to 1993, when I S Cammish set a time of 3-11-11, which stood for 27 years. 

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Now the new record needs to be ratified by the Road Records Association, which oversees a number of different UK cycling records.