Beryl's 12 hour.

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simongt

simongt

Guru
Location
Norwich
Skin suit, aero bike, aerobars.
Absolutely laughable :laugh: for the advantage of a mere eight miles which took fifty years to beat. Proves beyond doubt that Beryl was a one off. :rose:
 

Smokin Joe

Legendary Member
The current 12 hour record is 321 miles. It is a record that advances very slowly in comparison to other distance records simply because very few people ride the distance now and none of the top riders do. Even when Burton set her record most of her competitors were vets as the best amateurs had long switched to road racing and rarely rode time trials at all, let alone at the longer distances.

Beryl was a seriously classy rider, but her (Very laudable) 12 hour record has rather been venerated to a mythological status somewhat above what it actually was.
 

Dogtrousers

Kilometre nibbler
Absolutely laughable :laugh: for the advantage of a mere eight miles which took fifty years to beat. Proves beyond doubt that Beryl was a one off. :rose:
I do know what you mean but ... I think "laughable" is a bit disrespectful to Alice Lethbridge. 285 miles in 12 hours is still pretty awesome even if she didn't do it on a steel bike in woollen kit.

I mean ... my longest ride is still a bit shorter than that, and took more than twice as long.
 

Ajax Bay

Guru
Location
East Devon
too much sponsorship focused in the wrong areas.
Why do you think (inferentially) that long distance time trialing is the 'right' (or more appropriate) area for sponsorship?
@YukonBoy said "Skin suit, aero bike, aerobars."
Absolutely laughable
Don't quite see your rationale for describing "Skin suit, aero bike, aerobars" as "laughable", let alone "absolutely laughable"?
Records are just that, and a target for others to attempt to break. Do you think Gethin Butler considered the clothing and equipment of Michael Broadwith as 'laughable'?
 
OP
OP
simongt

simongt

Guru
Location
Norwich
Present Beryl with that bike & outfit; when she'd stopped laughing at it - ! :rofl: And with the likely torque she produced, she'd have probably torn the drivetrain out of it's pretty aero frame within 100 miles - ! :laugh:
 

Smokin Joe

Legendary Member
Present Beryl with that bike & outfit; when she'd stopped laughing at it - ! :rofl: And with the likely torque she produced, she'd have probably torn the drivetrain out of it's pretty aero frame within 100 miles - ! :laugh:
She'd have jumped at the chance of riding modern kit. Like all the top riders of her day, Beryl rode the latest and best kit available. I don't hear about too many modern riders tearing carbon fibre frames apart either.
 

Dogtrousers

Kilometre nibbler
This comment is about 24h TTs but it may well apply to 12h.

Just to show the extent to which 24h TTs are something of a backwater event, there's only one per year in the UK, the National 24h championships . Some years ago I wrote to the organisers to ask if there were lower level 24h events that I could have a bash at - I couldn't find any and obviously it would be ludicrous for someone like me to be in a National Championships event. They replied that theirs was the only one, and that I would be very welcome.

When an event has so few entrants that a random joe bloggs with no history is told by the organisers (I quote) "I suspect you won't be out of place because there is a huge range of abilities." then you know that it's pretty far from being the gold standard. Imagine if I wrote to M Prudhomme and said "I fancy having a bash at riding round France, it looks like a laugh".

I checked on the CTT website and there is indeed only one 24h event and there seems to be about 3 12hr events.
 
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