24 hours on - here's my thoughts.
I'm going to stay away from the technical discussion, the data, the numbers and leave all of that to those who are far more adept at this than I am.
As an an Announcer and Commentator, who works a fair number of top level races/events in a Calendar year in running, track & field, cycling and triathlon - from National Championships, to World Cups and World Championships, and the occasional National and sometimes World Record - What I had the pleasure of witnessing yesterday in person was one of those TRULY extraordinary and exceptional athletic performances!
Context as always is important Lionel had only been on the track and riding at this level of intensity 5 - 6 times. THIS is not his environment. It's NOT his space. Those that had done this before, and gone this far, have been World Class Road Cyclists and/or Track Specialists - who have spent may be hundreds of hours circling velodrome tracks, getting it all dialed in and nailed down!
Like many things that he has done - it's all a bit unorthodox and unusual - it's the Lionel way!
Before an effort like this, the warm-up is critical. World Class Pursuit Cyclists and Time-Trialers would spend probably about 45 minutes to an hour, riding the rollers and the trainer getting revved up and ready to go. Lionel showed up with about 15 - 20 minutes before the scheduled start time, chatted briefly with his Team, and the broadcast team, donned his skin suit, had his bike measured up by the Head UCI Commissaire one last time, and headed out on the track for what seemed to me like about a 10 min warm-up!! That's it!
Perhaps the BIGGEST concern of the day was the Start. According to UCI regs, he had to use the pneumatic Starting Block. He had only practiced using the Starting Block a few times. To push a 61 x 13 gear away, from this Starting Block is super tricky! I have seen World Class Track cyclists in the Pursuit and Team Sprint Starts, botch it up and fall flat on their face! Lionel wobbled a bit, but other than that, was able to pull away and get the bike up to a reasonable speed, in about a half a lap, and then settle in.
The first 10 - 15 mins is more important than many think. With the usual taper, a good warm-up, there is a tendency to feel like Superman in this time, and go out too hard. Lionel, showed amazing discipline, and patience and held back for the first number of laps, and it was not maybe until about the 5 min mark or a bit further in, that he was up to 51+ km/h. From then on, he was an absolute metronome, knocking out lap after lap within a couple of tenths of a second of each. We were following the lap times, but as you may have heard in the post-ride interview, they were meaningless to him - he wanted Kilometer splits, which Erin his wife was giving to him on a whiteboard!
I know there has been SO much discussion with his position, but to my less than expert eye - it actually looked pretty good. I was backed up by this afterwards by Cervelo Co-Founder, and now President of 4iiii, Phil White, who said he liked what he saw - still some work to be done - but overall, better, and not too bad! My co-commentator Ed Veal, the previous Canadian One Hour Record Holder, and himself a former top-ranked Pursuit rider (Bronze Medal in the Team Pursuit at the 2015 Pan Am Games), said Lionel was moving around a bit more than, he would have liked to have seen - but again, context, becomes key - 5 to 6 times on the track, and Lionel was pushing a much bigger gear, than others who have done this - so more body movement perhaps expected.
The time went by quickly, as I suspected it would, and suddenly we were at the 45 min mark, and Lionel was still knocking out the 17.5 sec laps, again, and again, and again! My thoughts were then, he's going to do this, and he was now after the third of his three goals (1. Break current record. 2. Go beyond 50km. 3. Surpass Jen's Voight's standard - the first of the new Unified UCI Records). The challenge with the bigger gear, lower RPM choice is you have zero wiggle room, when things start to go south on you, and when you can't stay on top of the gear, the blow-up comes, quickly!! But with each minute completed, past the 45 min mark, I felt more and more that we were going to be witnessing some history shortly!
Then he was past the Canadian Record and then past the 50km mark, and now the final count-down began . . . . and then the clock stopped and the distance was, a phenomenal 51.3 km! With the fixed gear it takes a lap or more to bring the bike back down to a pedestrian pace. Some who have done this, (The great Eddy Merckx) have had to be physically helped off the bike, or they have fallen off, or been left hanging on to the inside rail/fence of the track's infield - completely incapacitated. Lionel rolled around to the Start and Commentating location, hopped off the bike, himself and in the matter of a minute composed enough to do the interview that you all saw! Most world class riders ounce recovered, would have headed straight to the rollers for a warm-down. Lionel did no formal warm-down from what I saw. His only complaint to me, was when he walked down the stairs from the track to the infield, past where Ed and were working, he said "my quads are a bit sore"! :-)
There will probably lot's of talk and there already has bee, of, "What's next" In a three-way conversation that I had with Phil White and Ed Veal, shortly after we finished, given what we saw, and Lionel's lack of experience, some fine tuning of the position, and perhaps a trip to the Aquacalientes, Velodrome in Mexico, at altitude, and he could go much further! But again, context is key - next up is the PTO/Challenge Daytona race, where Lionel is going in, clearly in the absolute BEST bike/run fitness of his life and then the UCI eSports World Championships which will be raced on Zwift, where one hour FTP is King and Lionel just showed, absolutely that he's in the best shape of his life for One Hour Power/FTP!
Thank you to the true wizards behind this production - Talbot Cox (working remotely and from afar) and Greg McFadden (many don't know Greg at all, but you've all seen his outstanding camera work in Post IRONMAN Race Videos and from the IRONMAN World Championships).
Thank you to Canyon, Gatorade, Zwift, and Freshii for their partnership.
Thank you to my Co-Commentator Ed Veal - He is the Real Deal, and knows this kind of cycling inside out and it was particularly poignant, as the existing Record Holder to have him involved.
Finally thank you to everyone who did watch and for the many kind words and compliments that came my way. I felt a bit rusty, to be honest. It was particularly special for me, in this upside down year, as this, and last weekend's commentary for FloBikes of the Women's Tour of Flanders, were my first bits of real work in over 7 months! Hopefully we have started the long road back to some level of normalcy!
That's it for from me! Be well. Stay safe and stay healthy!
Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog
