Faster Than An Airbus A340--Or Any Guy

I wrote one of my earliest posts about Beryl Burton.  Half a century ago, she held cycling's 12-hour time trial record.  No, not just the women's record, the record.  Over that historic half-day, she pedaled 277.25 miles (446.2 kilometers).  That was a full five miles (eight kilometers) more than the record she broke.  That margin enabled her to keep the record for two years--a geologic age in that world.

Now I am getting to write about someone who I see as one of her heirs.

Yesterday, Denise Mueller-Korenek rode a bicycle 183.93 miles (296 kilometers) per hour.  Like Burton, she broke not only a women's record--she broke the record.  

Another way her ride, though much shorter, parallels that of Burton is that she didn't beat the old record by a hair or a fraction of a kilometer per hour.  Rather, she rode a full 17 miles (27.3 kilometers) per hour than the previous record-holder--Dutchman Fred Rompleberg--who accomplished his feat in 1995.

To put it another way:  Ms. Mueller-Korenek rode nearly ten percent faster than the previous record holder.  And she rode faster than an Airbus A340 taking off.

What makes her record perhaps even more astonishing than Burton's is that Miller-Korenek is 45 years old and took 23 years off from cycling to raise her three kids.  But her coach isn't so surprised.  "I've been coaching mostly women, including Denise, for the past 35 or 40 years," he said. "My theory is that women are able to push that aging envelope a little further than men and are more capable of long-distance peak performance."

Denise Mueller-Korenek, center, with coach John Howard and Shea Holbrook, who drove the race car that paced her.

Her coach is John Howard. If that name rings a bell, it's because he was, arguably, one of the first world-class American cyclists since the days of the six-day races.  Oh, and because he held, for a decade, the very speed record Rompelberg broke--which, in turn, Denise Mueller-Korenek shattered yesterday.

A Curious Vehicle

You know you're getting old when you mention a name that was on everybody's lips when you were young--which doesn't seem all that long ago--and a young person has no idea of  who you're talking about.

That happens from time to time when I teach:  I might utter the name of a song, band, TV show, movie or anything that was part of the culture or news when I was young and my students look at me as if I'd started to speak Basque.  

Something similar could happen if I say "John Howard" to a cyclist who's, say, a couple of decades younger than I am.  Actually, the young 'unz might think he was part of the British Invasion or some white-bread politician. 

But if you're my age, or not much younger, you remember that he was part of that generation of cyclists that put the USA on the bicycle world's map. His star rose as American racing--and cycling--rose from its "Dark Ages" during the 1970s.  

It's hard not to wonder what he would have been like had he been born, say, a decade or two later than he was.  Greg LeMond was no doubt a talented rider, but coming along nearly a generation after Howard gave him the advantage of having faced better-trained competition than Howard had at home before he went to race in Europe.  But Howard did well in a greater variety of events, including the early Ironman triathlons.  Moreover, Howard held a land speed record that stood for a full decade--a geological age in the world of sports records.

He also was something of a philosopher:

Before Portland, There Was Portland

Mention "the history of cycling"--or, in particular, "the history of road (or track) racing", and chances are people would think of Europe--perhaps specifically of France or Italy.

However, in spite of the "Dark Ages" in the post-World War II years, the United States has its own history of bicycle racing.  Most of it is still unwritten and exists--to the extent that it does--in photographs that are fading and becoming brittle as leaves in October.

I have alluded to a few episodes of that history in earlier posts about Nancy Burghart and the Six Day Races, and others in which I mention the annual Tour of Somerville (NJ) and the 1951 tandem race in New Brunswick, NJ.

Now I've come across another interesting piece of that history:  the 1967 National Road Championships in Portland, OR.

American Cycling:  October 1967 issue featuring National Championships held in Portland, OR

Yes, in Portland.  Believe it or not, people cycled there before the first hipsters moved in.  (To be fair, a lot of the newcomers were trying to live the kinds of lives they hoped to live--and couldn't afford--in San Francisco and Seattle.)  Before there were commuters and nude races there were, well, races.

Actually, it's not so surprising when you consider that most of the cycling scene of that time was concentrated on the West Coast and in parts of New England and, inerestingly, the Detroit area.  In 1967, the American racing scene was taking its first pedal strokes on its return to a place among the cycling superpowers.  Tim Mountford, Jackie Simes, Skip Cutting and John Howard--and, of course, Nancy Burghart-- were the stars in that still-limited but growing firmament of American bicycle racing.

Given that Stars and Stripes cycling was drawing the first breaths of its resuscitation, Pete Hoffman's account of the Portland championships makes for a remarkably good read.  And, of course, the photos are not to be missed.