This week, in Tadej Pogacar‘s now legendary victory on the Galibier, there was an episode that the Tour de France organization itself highlighted: a dizzying descent at 110 km/h. In 2022, Marcus Burghardt recorded a top speed of 130 km/h. This is the other part of cycling that is most hidden, the art of the descent, with the adrenaline and risk that it entails (and some technology).
How far can you go on a bike? Below, we’ll review some records that, far from being just a simple bike ride, are full of technique and achieved on horizontal surfaces. No descents here.
😨 The speed in the downhill… Almost 110 km/h!
😨 La vitesse dans la descente… Presque 110 km/h !#TDF2024 pic.twitter.com/AHlDC7FkIh
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 2, 2024
Denise Mueller-Korenek: 296 km/h
The world bike speed record belongs to American Denise Mueller-Korenek, who in 2018 reached a speed of 296 km/h in Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah. This record was achieved through the use of ‘drafting’ behind a specially designed vehicle that minimized wind resistance and on a custom-built carbon KHS bike. Prior to the Mueller-Korenek record, Dutchman Fred Rompelberg held the speed record for more than two decades. In 1995, Rompelberg reached a speed of 268.8 km/h also at Bonneville Salt Flats, using a technique similar to Denise’s.
In velodromes
In velodromes, track cycling very high speeds are reached during sprints. Briton and multiple Olympic champion Chris Hoy has reached speeds of up to 80 km/h.
Hour Record
The Hour Record is a test in which a cyclist tries to ride the longest distance possible for one hour in a velodrome. Average speed is the main objective and the current record holder is the Italian Filippo Ganna, double world time trial champion and reigning Olympic team pursuit champion, who averaged close to 57 km/h (56.792 km/h, to be precise) during the 60 minutes in which he flew over the Grenchen velodrome. Filippo already impressed the world when in a time trial of the 2021 Giro d’Italia he reached speeds of over 66 km/h to ride on average at 58km/h during the nearly 9 kilometers of the aforementioned time trial.
Mountain Bike Downhill Record
Here the track really goes downhill and it’s all about top-level technique and bravery to match his skill. In this case, the test takes place under the umbrella of mountain biking, an extreme sport and more so in the case of the record of Frenchman Eric Barone, who in 2017 reached a speed of 227.7 km/h on the snowy slopes of Vars, France. Without snow, the record is held by Austrian Max Stöckl, who descended a mountain through the Atacama Desert in northern Chile at a speed of 167.6 km/h on a 45-degree slope.
