When Dan Bingham did a full dress rehearsal in preparation for his Hour attempt and published the data, it’s a sport scientist’s Christmas!
Since the UCI recalibrated and reset the rules for the Hour record in 2014, interest in the event amongst professional cyclists and the public has been reignited. The Hour may no longer have the crazy technological mind warps first ignited by Francesco Moser’s in 1984 and the eggshell and Superman positions of someone like the legendary Scot Graham Obree. However, arguably it is now a more balanced mix of technological innovations paired with supreme athletic preparation.
One of the other trends in pro cycling over the past decade has been the rise of “performance specialists/consultants/engineers” embedded into teams. The role of these individuals have been to take a holistic – and arguably obsessive – dive into the many ways in which a cyclist’s performance can be refined and optimized.
One of the biggest names in performance engineering in cycling is Dan Bingham, for many years with Ineos Grenadiers until recently moving over to Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe. Dan is far more than an obsessed engineer – he’s also an elite cyclist who first made a name for himself as part of the self-funded HUUB track team pursuit endeavour that shattered world records. In his work for Ineos, he paved the way for Filippo Ganna’s current 56.792 record (October 8, 2022) by first setting a non-UCI official record of 54.723 on October 1, 2021 (not ratified because he wasn’t then part of UCI anti-doping testing and biological passport) and then an official record of 55.548 km on August 19, 2022.
Dan Bigham’s Hour
Kordi et al. 2024
The great thing with Dan’s performance was his commitment to openness. This led to his collaboration in a scientific publication of data from his dress rehearsal attempt in February 2021 prior to his unofficial October 2021 record. This full dress rehearsal is pretty rare as it is, as most hour attempts involve road pros jumping onto the track with minimal preparation time or at best a shortened 30 min test effort.
This February 2021 dress rehearsal was a full Hour record simulation, with all of the equipment, track setup, and warmup protocol conforming to UCI protocols. But unlike an actual hour record, data was taken throughout and now published (Kordi et al. 2024).
The Protocol
At the time of the attempt, Dan was 29 years old, 75.2 kg, 1.84, and his critical power was 353 W. The latter was determined from 3-20 min max efforts analyzed in data from the prior two months of training.
The attempt was done at the Tissot Velodrome in Switzerland, where both of Dan’s real attempts and also Ganna’s took place. Air temperature was 26.3°C, relative humidity of 23.8% and air density was 1.179 kg/m3.
This dress rehearsal went with an even-pacing strategy, with the goal of maintaining 16.6 s laps throughout the entire hour except for the first lap.
Some of the data recorded, apart from the expected ones of power, heart rate, and pacing, included estimated core temperature with the CORE unit, estimated cdA using a bike-mounted sensor, and rider kinematics using the Leomo sensors. Specifically, these gyroscope/acceleraometer sensors were placed on the thigh, foot, and inside the helmet tail.
Was Bigham too hot?
The Tale of the Tape
Given the air density, temperature, and critical power, this dress rehearsal’s even 16.6 s pacing targeted a 54.000 km. Ultimately, Dan was unable to maintain this pace at 38:33 into the hour (lap 139 or 34.750 m), ending with a final distance of 53.250 km.
As a result, one of the key focus of analysis was comparing data before and after this point of task failure.
Average lap time, power, and cadence (gearing of 64:14!) were 16.88 s, 348 ± 37 W, and 93 ± 4 rpm. Not surprisingly, speed, power, and cadence were all lower after this task failure point compared to before. Interestingly, heart rate averaged 172 ± 4 bpm and did not vary pre/post task failure. This could be due to some of the thermal factors below.
Estimated core temperature started at 38.5°C, reaching 39.2°C at task failure and 39.6°C at the end. Some things to note was the quite high baseline temperature. This could be due to the known accuracy issues with CORE, time of day (body temperature rises throughout the day), or the effects of the warmup. Regardless, rider perception was of intense heat after around 40 min, making it hard to control breathing and heavily adding to ratings of perceived exertion. This would support the importance of heat adaptation for these conditions along with pre-cooling interventions on race day.
Despite the heat and not drinking during the Hour, sweating led to relatively minimal dehydration of ~2%, which is well within the recommended guidelines and at levels where research from my lab have shown no impairment in performance from either physiological impairment or thirst.
Though average power was less than Dan’s calculated CP, the pre-task failure power averaged 360W, slightly higher than his CP of 353. Remember, CP is the threshold where higher efforts cannot be sustained indefinitely, so it’s not surprising that this exercise in the severe intensity domain led to premature task failure. This was supported by the very high lactate levels post-Hour.
Dan’s cdA also increased as the Hour progressed, with more helmet movement. At the same time, leg and foot kinematics also changed over the Hour. Together, this points to the intuitive rocking and rolling we all do as we get tired during an effort.
Learning From the Best
Just like my article comparing race data from Giro men’s and women’s winners, there’s a lot we can learn from elite performers. For me, first and foremost is the meticulous planning and testing that goes into top performances. We may not be able to do full dress rehearsals like Dan did for his Hour, but we can and should plan and leave as little to chance as possible with our peak events. Whether it’s knowing the physiological demands to getting onto the podium, likely weather conditions and adapting to them, or the right equipment choices, there’s a lot we can do to give ourselves the best chance for a top performance.
The other thing that stood out was the thermal challenge Dan experienced. With most of our peak events in the summer, a heat adaptation and heat mitigation plan is absolutely critical.
Ride fast, and have fun!
Next up was Filippo Ganna
References
Kordi M, Bigham D, Tipper J, et al (2024) Case study of a world hour record simulation in an elite cyclist: Insight into task failure. European Journal of Sport Science n/a: https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsc.12195
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