in 1993, Graeme Obree, stunned the cycling community by riding 51.596Km and breaking Francesco Moser’s World Hour Record, which had stood for 10 years.
Graeme used a custom made bike and a radical new position. The amazing thing about the record is that he had attempted the record the day before and failed. Despite failing, he managed to persuade the authorities to let him have another go, 24 hours later. For anyone who has done a really hard time trial, they will know how difficult it is to go even faster the next day. Obree famously prepared for his records by eating marmelade sandwiches. His training involved ‘riding for as hard as he could for an hour’ On the second attempt he was successful
1st World Hour Record by Obree – 51.596Km
Obree used the innovative ‘tuck’ position for his first world hour record.
Franceso Moser’s record had stood since 1984 at 51.151 Km. Moser had used a gear of 57*15 giving a cadence of 103.1 rpm.
Over nine years later Obree sought to break the record in Hamar, Norway. His first attempt on July 16th failed by nearly 0.5Km.
However, on Obree’s second attempt, on the 17th July, he was successful riding 51.596 Km. He used a big gear 52*12 (9.25metres) giving a relatively low cadence of 93.0 rpm.
A week later, Chris Boardman broke Obree’s record, taking the record to 52.270 KM.
2nd World Hour Record – 52.713Km 1994
In the meantime, the UCI banned the tuck position. Therefore Obree went back to the drawing board and came up with a new position ‘the superman position’
Obree in the Superman position
In 1994, on the 27th April, Obree went for the record again. He successfully broke the record riding 52.713Km.
This was beaten later in the year by one of the world’s top pro time-triallists – Miguel Indurain.
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