Jens Voigt's Hour Record
 

Ah, the Hour Record. The most irrelevant discipline, about which the most non-track fans have the most vocal opinions...

So, Voigt's attempt at the Hour Record is on Thursday Sept 18th at the velodrome in Grenchen, Switzerland. Here's a link that will aggregate some coverage - there will probably be a livestream (Eurosport is covering it).

Here's his bike (more):
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=406368

Some facts -
He's going for the Unified Hour Record, currently held by Ondrej Sosenka, 49.7km.
He'll probably use 54x14, which needs just over 100rpm to beat the record.
He'll have the benefit of full aero gear - dual discs, aerobars, helmet.
The elevation of Grenchen is 450m above sea level.

So - off the cuff - who wants to make bold predictions?

Yeah, I kinda figured this deserved its own thread.

He obviously is going to blow the record away, I can't see how he wouldn't. 49.7 was on a regular bike, with tech from 20 years ago (I think back in the 90s someone did a 55ish already on a tri bike).

Considering the pros TT at over 50kmh OUTSIDE, I can't see why anyone would expect him not to beat it.

I would guess 56kmh, just because.



What bike is that? A speedconcept with track drops? I like it

Here's the bike that Rominger rode to 55.291 km in 1994:

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=406433

Looks pretty much like a legal bike with the exception of the 650c front wheel.

Here's an article on the record breaking ride by his coach Michelle Ferrari.

Rominger's Hour

That position isn't legal at this point either. It's too stretched out I think.

55.5km because of the advantage of modern wind tunnel testing and aero equipment.

This was Sosenka's bike, check out the saddle to bar drop!

http://www.chinabike.net/newbbs/Uplo...3200734865.jpg

Lovin the Gebhardt chainring, super cheap here in europe. The saddle to bar drop almost looks like Voigts road bike. Jens will do 54,3km.

Typical sprinter, anything longer than three laps... :50:

For a guy like Jens, I'm kind of surprised that they set the gearing up for a target of over 100 rpm. He seems to be more of a grinder as usually has a lower cadence when he's out front attacking. Apples to oranges a bit but still seems odd

hey! i'm an enduro!

He'll stay true to his roadie roots,

predicted final distance: 53.11

Not sure he'll even beat Boardman's first hour record of 52.270km, I'll be impressed if he does.
Also looking historically at gear choices 54x14 seems a bit small if he's targeting anything over 50km.

I was a bit surprised that he is using a 54t ring, being locked into the DA cranks seems to have left them stuck, I suppose they looked it over though.

I would recommend a healthy grain of salt when talking about reported gear combinations. First, it's easy to report this wrong (a 54x14 is very different than a 54x13 but it's a pretty easy mistake to make). Second, track is rife with gamesmanship around gearing. Third, if the reported gear combo is true, if you look at the high altitude attempts, a 54x14 is not out of line for 50+km; it's about the same (a little higher) as what Francesco Moser used to get 51.15km.

Track cadence is different than road. Road tends towards higher gears. Also, gearing on the track runs in trends. The group of guys from the 90s were evidently into huge gears and low cadence. Guys from the 60s through 80s were into low gears and high cadence. Gearing for track events is a bit of a black art, ask any track sprinter, and has little to do with what you would choose on the road. On the road you have slight downhills that serve as micro-recoveries, and you can coast through corners. Lastly, if you have to accelerate the slightest (as you have to do through every corner on the track), you get to gear down momentarily. Jens has the benefit of modern power meter training methods. In summary, I think he knows what he is doing.

Speaking of corners - With a 200m track there will be more cornering and the center of gravity will be going less distance than on a 250 or 333. The low bottom bracket on the road bike is giving some of that back, maybe a couple of cm per lap but his seat height is taller so he gets more from the corners than a shorter rider.
On this basis I expect that the next sea level attempt will be at Alpenrose on a tall bike (double double diamond frame). Probably why Carlton is suddenly asking about pursuit schedules.

The Grenchen track is 250 m.

The thing about shorter tracks with steep banking is that slamming into the curves scrubs off speed. So there's a lot of re-acceleration going on. I think that steady-state efforts might be better on bowl-like 333M tracks like Colorado Springs or Trexlertown.

Somehow I thought it was at the UCI track, who would think that there are more indoor tracks than the US.

Jens hour
 

55x14, live attempt here:

Hour Record

It's live on Eurosport right now. Also at:

2014 Cycling Hour Record Live Video, Event Info, Jens Voigt Updates

51.115!

Caught the opening and then the last 13 minutes...unexpectedly thrilling! Jens was amazing!

I watched the whole hour on cyclingfans.com (thanks to post #1 ). Great coverage although occasionally I could hear two commentaries simultaneously. Good display of times and distances throughout the ride.

Did Jens break any other records during his ride?

Other observations:

The track is at 450 m altitude.

I noticed the large BMC ads on the track were replaced by Trek ads.

The spectators were relatively calm compared to other record attempts I've witnessed where spectators surrounded the track yelling and banging on the boards creating a wall of sound that followed the rider.

Jens was listening to music as he rode (one of his handlers could be seen removing his taped earpiece after his ride). I assume an earpiece is within the rules.

No drink during the ride.