Winning By Two Weeks

Minutes or seconds.

Kilometers or meters. Miles or feet.

Those are the margins by which world records are broken in cycling. Seconds or minutes could separate a current from a former record holder on a particular course or distance. Meters, feet, kilometers or miles demarcate the difference between a new and an old record for distance pedaled over an hour or some other fixed amount of time.

But two weeks? 

Well, Lael Wilcox beat a world record by that much.

To be clear, she wasn’t in a UCI-sanctioned race. I reckon, however, that her speed and endurance could match, or better, that of any rider on the World Cup circuit. Over the past three and a half months, she’s put in more miles or kilometers than most racers ride in a year—and, on an average day, she covered more ground than cyclists on a stage of a multi-day extravaganza like the Tour, Giro or Vuelta.

So, on what kind of ride did she best her nearest rival by two weeks? 

It’s one that she took—or took her, depending on your point of view—around the world. Beginning and ending in Chicago, she covered 18,125 miles (29169 kilometers) over four continents in 108 days, 12 hours and 12 minutes.

The previous women’s record holder, Jenny Graham of Scotland, did her 2018 world tour in 124 days and 11 hours.

Her grand tour ended on 11 September. How did she celebrate? By taking a ride with her wife, photojournalist Rue Kaladyte, who took this photo when Wilcox arrived in Chicago:

Where Is His Rival?

I'm now waiting for a rival.

That sounds like something Muhammad Ali could have said at the peak of his career.  Or, perhaps, Eddy Mercx, Bernard Hinault or Martina Navritilova.  I think we could also add Serena Williams, Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky to the list of athletes who were in a class by themselves when they were at the top of their game.

The man who uttered it, though, may have had even more of a right to make such a claim. In February 2012, he rode 24.250 kilometers (15.1 miles) in an hour, on a track.  That might not seem remarkable, much less like a record of any sort, until you realize that the ride was accomplished by a man who had turned 100 a few months earlier.

Robert Marchand thus set a record for track cyclists 100 years or older.  Two years later, he bested that mark with 26.927 kilometers (16.73 miles) in an hour.

If he was looking for a rival then, he would have an even more difficult time finding one on 4 January 2017. That day, an hour of pedaling the Velodrome National, just outside of Paris, added up to 22.547 kilometers (14.01 miles).  That would set one-hour track record for the 105-and-over age group, a category created specifically for him.

Now tell me, who is going to rival that?

What's really interesting about Robert Marchand's feats, though, is that he isn't a "career" cyclist.  He had racing aspirations in his youth, but a coach advised him to give them up because, he said, his size (1.52 meters, or 5 feet and 52 kilograms, or 115 pounds) would hold him back.

Robert Marchand was born in the northern French city of Amiens on 26 November 1911.  After decades of working in Venezuela and Canada, he returned to France in the 1960s.  At age 68, he dedicated himself to his youthful passion of cycling.

Before setting his track his track records, he took some long-distance rides, including a trek from Paris to Moscow in 1992.  

In addition to the track records I previously mentioned, he also holds the record for someone over the age of 100 riding 100 kilometers.  When he turned 106, his doctors advised him to stop training for records.  But he continued to ride, at least 20 minutes every day.  In February 2018, he completed a 4000 meter race in the same stadium where he set his over-105 record.  And he celebrated his 107th birthday with a 20 kilometer ride.  

He finally transitioned to indoor riding, due to hearing loss, after he turned 108.  He continued, however, to ride every day until a week before his death on Saturday, age 109.

Even if he hadn't set records for his age group, I think one would have to look very, very long and very, very far to find a rival for Robert Marchand.