Alex Dowsett is now at the track in Aguascalientes in full training and acclimatisation mode. He will attempt to recapture the coveted UCI Hour Record timed by TISSOT on Wednesday the 3rd of November.
The British cyclist aims to exceed the 55.089km distance covered by Victor Campenaerts at the same track in April, 2019, and take back the record he broke in 2015 but lost 36 days later to Sir Bradley Wiggins.
Dowsett, 33, who has severe haemophilia A, is using the event to highlight his charity Little Bleeders and the work done by The Haemophilia Society in support of the
7,500 people in the UK who have the condition.
The start time is provisionally scheduled for 4pm local (10pm UK / 11pm Central European time) and will be streamed live worldwide on Alex’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/alexdowsettofficial. Viewers in the UK will also be able to watch live on the BBC iPlayer, the BBC Sport website and app and trackcycling will be providing live updates on twitter – @trackcycling.
Dowsett is in Mexico with a small support team consisting of his coach, Dr Michael Hutchinson, nutritionist Alan Murchison, partner Chanel and their daughter Juliette.
Speaking during a training session on Thursday afternoon, Dowsett said: “It’s quite a different beast coming to altitude to do an Hour Record because the requirements are so different and you’ve got to travel the same speed, but actually the difference at that speed compared with sea level is quite significant. We calculated that in terms of moving the air around you it’s the equivalent of riding 43 kilometres in an hour at sea level which is staggering, however with that comes the distinct lack of oxygen up here.
“We’ve done some four-minute runs and we’ve been doing some testing, I’m fortunate to have a set of Campag Ghiblis and a set of HEDs at my disposal and it’s looking like we’ll go with the HEDs..
“Today we’re testing tyre pressures, so far it isn’t showing anything out of the ordinary which is good and we’ll start knocking in some longer runs, but the problem so far has been going slow enough. But then it’s easy to get carried away, especially when it’s only four minutes.
“I’m feeling good… I shouldn’t be feeling super in these first few days, I should be feeling super in a week’s time once I’m over the travel and have thrown in a taper. I’m in a good place.”
In an interview to be shown in the live coverage of Dowsett’s event, Campenaerts, said “I broke the record on the track at Aguascalientes, which is at 1,888 metres, so it was important to be prepared for the altitude and also for the heat. I trained for two months in Namibia, a lot of hours on the Time Trial bike, also a lot of hours on flat, straight roads, aiming for the cadence that I needed in the record, holding the position for one hour straight and more in training because it’s very hard not to
move on the bike.
“The first 20 to 30 minutes is really a pleasure because you know what pace you should ride. I knew Wiggins’s laps were 16.45s so I focussed on never being over 16.45 because I knew then I would never lose any time on Wiggo and the last five minutes, if you know you are going to write history, I wouldn’t say the pain disappeared, but it was a lot more easy to handle and I speeded up quite a
bit.”
The Belgian rider, who has been in contact with Dowsett in the lead-up to the attempt, added: “Alex, good luck with your record. Enjoy your one hour of pain and let’s see where you end up!”
