The Hour Record (Page 2)

Rule changes.  There was a time when the hour record didn't have any restrictions, and guys were doing some crazy stuff (superman position) in order to break the record.  So the UCI changed the rules to prevent it from being a contest of who can be the most aero as compared to who can simply ride their bike the fastest.  So all those records that were not done with UCI rules at the time were dropped.

Fast forward to May 2014 and the UCI changed their rules to allow the use of modern pursuit bikes, but they still need to be UCI legal pursuit bikes.  I don't know this for sure, but my guess is that they can't back track and know for sure if all or any of the previous attempts over 49.7 km were following the UCI pursuit bike rules since they weren't checking for them to begin with.  Tough luck so to speak.

Make no mistake...Jens is very aware that this record isn't much more than bringing publicity to the sport, a nice farewell, and stamping his name in the history book before someone else has the chance to SMASH his record.  If Martin or Wiggo takes a legit crack at it...expect closer to 53.5-54.5 km.  Really no different than the gap you would expect between them and a 43 year old Jens in a 50-55 km TT during a road race.  Especially when you consider a guy like Wiggo comes from a track background.

If you want to see what was going on at the time watch The Flying Scotsman (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472268/).  Graeme Obree was all kinds of effed up in his head but was a monster on the bike and it also shows what was going on with UCI and the bikes at the time too.  

Rule changes.  There was a time when the hour record didn't have any restrictions, and guys were doing some crazy stuff (superman position) in order to break the record.  So the UCI changed the rules to prevent it from being a contest of who can be the most aero as compared to who can simply ride their bike the fastest.  So all those records that were not done with UCI rules at the time were dropped.

Fast forward to May 2014 and the UCI changed their rules to allow the use of modern pursuit bikes, but they still need to be UCI legal pursuit bikes.  I don't know this for sure, but my guess is that they can't back track and know for sure if all or any of the previous attempts over 49.7 km were following the UCI pursuit bike rules since they weren't checking for them to begin with.  Tough luck so to speak.

Make no mistake...Jens is very aware that this record isn't much more than bringing publicity to the sport, a nice farewell, and stamping his name in the history book before someone else has the chance to SMASH his record.  If Martin or Wiggo takes a legit crack at it...expect closer to 53.5-54.5 km.  Really no different than the gap you would expect between them and a 43 year old Jens in a 50-55 km TT during a road race.  Especially when you consider a guy like Wiggo comes from a track background.

Here's a good blog, I think. 

http://horsdelais.blogspot.ca/2014/09/reflections-on-jens-voigts-hour-record.html