The best hour records lack melodrama, but are marked instead by a constantly building sense of history in the making as the raw statistics make it obvious what is coming. Alex Dowsett did not have to be lifted off his bike, he did not collapse and he never wavered, wobbled or weaved throughout his 212 laps at the National Cycling Centre. He even used the word “easy”, but only compared to what he had expected. That was the point: this was a controlled and perfectly paced 60 minutes and therein lay the secret of his success.
Covering 52.937km, the 26-year-old became the first Briton since Chris Boardman to hold the record, beating the mark held by the Australian Rohan Dennis by almost two laps, or 446m, and raising the prospect of a duel with Sir Bradley Wiggins, who will make his attempt on 7 June. Not long after getting off his bike, the Essex rider said that he may make another bid later in the year, presumably depending how cycling’s Modfather fares. It is an enthralling prospect.
Dowsett was slower than Dennis for most of the distance, but that depended how you looked at it. One part of the scoreboard showed how he compared in real time to Dennis, while a smaller figure indicated what he would achieve if his current pace were maintained for 60 minutes. How that stacked up with Dennis’s distance was the critical measurement.
While Dowsett was 8sec behind Dennis in the opening 25 minutes, the Australian had started quicker and had slowed drastically in his final 15 minutes. Dowsett set off at positively leaden pace in the opening lap and a half but once he hit cruising speed, he maintained the same even pace throughout, covering most of his laps in about 17sec, raising his game approaching the half-hour and pushing hard in the final 15 minutes.
“I wish people hadn’t told me it was going to be so hard. Compared to what I had expected, it was easy,” he said. “I was expecting it to be horrific but it was just terrible.
“The coaches gave me a plan which I didn’t like too much, which was to be behind Dennis for three-quarters of an hour.
“This was the first time we had run with the velodrome at a high temperature, so I knew it would be easier earlier on. I got a bit excited around halfway, and the last 10 minutes got a bit grippy.”
Critically, Dowsett maintained the same metronomic cadence of about 100 pedal revolutions per minute with his coach, Steve Dennis, continually giving him a hand signal showing he was either slightly ahead or on even pace. It looked almost slow-motion, but that belied the constant speed: about 32mph. The historic British time trial distance of 25 miles – 160 laps – was covered in about 47 minutes.
It became clear the record was in his grasp after 31 minutes, when his average speed moved ahead of Dennis’s record of 52.491km, at which point the crowd found their collective voices. He gained immensely in the final 10 minutes – hitting a 17sec advantage – and with seven minutes remaining he was confident enough to raise his thumbs from his aerodynamic handlebars to his watching family.
With just under 28sec of his 60 minutes to run he passed Dennis’s distance. By this point the crowd – not capacity, but filling the home straight and the track centre – were delirious, the wall of noise driving him on. In that 28sec he covered just under two laps, with the gun going on turn three of the second lap.
The Perfect Hour, said the marketing spiel from the various equipment suppliers and sponsors, and for once the hype was justified. Perfection in this sphere means being almost unobtrusive, but it merits a spectacular celebration.
