How a UCI snafu may have given Dan Bigham an advantage in the Hour Record

On Friday, Dan Bigham set a new UCI Hour Record of 55.548km on the velodrome in Grenchen, Switzerland, beating Victor Campenaerts’ previous record by 459 metres. It was an impressive ride by the Ineos Grenadiers performance engineer. Although not a professional cyclist, Bigham is also the British Hour Record holder. He beat Tour de France champion Sir Bradley Wiggins’ distance when he rode 54.723km on the same Swiss track in October 2021.

The 30-year-old rode an unreleased Pinarello track bike to achieve the incredible feat. The bike he rode seems to be a modified Pinarello Bolide F time trial bike.

However, the ride was not without slight controversy. According to a Facebook post by Ron Couwenhoven, the track was not set up as per UCI regulations. “A remarkable fact in Dan Bigham’s successful attack on Victor Campenaerts’ world hour record: the blue band at the bottom of the track was not cordoned off as prescribed by regulations. The foam blocks (pads) that were supposed to make it impossible to enter this forbidden zone were placed by the jury from the inside of the Côte d’Azur. As a result, there was still a few inches of space on the outside, which meant that Bigham was not forced above the black line, but could ride on it and sometimes even below it.”

He goes on to explain that watching the live stream it is clear that that this was the case. On each turn he could carve a few extra centimeters by riding on the black line. Additionally, since on the straights the blocks were wrong it left room to ride on the blue.”

As a result, Couwenhoven says, Bigham was also able to ride much lower when entering the corners than Victor Campenaerts in his attack on April 16, 2019.

The UCI regulations are as follows: “For lanes longer than 250 meters, the blue belt will be made impassable by placing pads which must be placed every five meters. Starting from each chasing line to the end of the second turn after this chasing line.”

Of course, it’s not Bigham’s fault that the organizers may not have set up the track properly. But for the sake of argument, if you take into account that he completed 222 laps, the few centimeters here and there would be quite significant. Since the measurement is based on laps, not the measurement that you’d use on say, your Garmin, if he could do a little less each corner or straight, it would be to his advantage.Couwenhoven estimates that he might have gained 2.11 meters every lap, oe 105.5 centimeters…