Ridley releases details of Victor Campenaerts’s Hour Record bike

Custom built bike and bars for the Hour Record attempt

Rather than fitting Campenaerts to his Hour Record bike, Ridley has built a custom machine based on his dimensions. So the geometry of the Ridley Arena TT bike is an exact copy of that of his Ridley Dean Fast time trial bike.

Aero features include the use of Ridley’s F-Surface Plus tube profile. It uses areas of textured surface and groves to create a turbulent boundary layer that smooths airflow over the frame and helps decrease drag. It’s used in all Ridley’s aero machines, including the Noah Fast, which we’ve tested.

>>> Inside Ridley's wind tunnel

Another custom feature is the aerobar, which is carbon and based on a mould of Campenaerts’s forearms and hands. Ridley has been working on perfecting this, and gaining UCI approval, since January last year. Campenaerts successfully used the extensions in the World Championship time trial in Innsbruck, where he rode to a bronze medal.

Aerobar has been formed based on a mould of Campenaerts's forearms

The base bar measures only 33cm wide – as against the normal 38cm to 44cm. Again, this improves aerodynamics. And Campenaerts will only use it to gain speed in the first 15 seconds of his attempt.

Campenaerts may ride a 63x15 or a 59x14 gear

Gearing for the attempt in Aguascalientes, Mexico on April 16 or 17 has yet to be decided. But Campenaerts is trialling both 63x15 and 59x14 gears. Ridley says that it will be bringing six different chainrings and six sprocket sizes to the attempt.

These two gearings result in similar ratios and 8.7m of forward travel for each rotation of the pedals. With a planned cadence of 105 rpm, that means that he should travel around 54.8km in the hour – around 300m more than Wiggins.

Campenaerts will use a road chain rather than a track chain to reduce friction in the drivetrain. And the chainrings and sprockets have been specifically milled too. His Campagnolo Ghibli disc wheels will be shod with Vittoria tubs with a gold tread – again with the aim of lowering friction.

Ridley asked the Belgian public to vote for a name for the Hour Record bike. Rather like the vote to name the next polar research vessel in the UK, which ended up with the name Boaty McBoatface, this didn’t go well: the bike has been named the Flying Moustache.

Thank you for reading 20 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access

Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription

Join now for unlimited access

Try first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

Paul Norman

Paul started writing for Cycling Weekly in 2015, covering cycling tech, new bikes and product testing. Since then, he’s reviewed hundreds of bikes and thousands of other pieces of cycling equipment for the magazine and the Cycling Weekly website.

He’s been cycling for a lot longer than that though and his travels by bike have taken him all around Europe and to California. He’s been riding gravel since before gravel bikes existed too, riding a cyclocross bike through the Chilterns and along the South Downs.