Bradley Wiggins Sets One-Hour Cycling Record – Wall Street Journal

LONDON—Bradley Wiggins, the first British victor in the Tour de France and a medal winner at four Olympics, Sunday traveled 54.526 kilometers (33.881 miles) in an hour, comfortably setting a world record.

The record had been held by fellow Briton Alex Dowsett, who rode for 52.937 kilometers in May.

Mr. Wiggins was ahead of the record pace from the start, locked in an aerodynamic position in which his upper body remained still and horizontal, while his legs pumped out a regular rhythm. No cyclist is built to sit in the saddle, fixed in the same posture for a whole hour. Road racers often push for an hour in time trials, but the form isn’t as rigid. Mr. Wiggins began to waver in the final 10 minutes, but had built up enough of a cushion to set a new mark.

Mr. Wiggins, who grew up in north London, set his record at London’s Lee Valley VeloPark, scene of many British cycling triumphs during the 2012 Olympic Games. At the end of his 219 laps of the circuit, he raised his bike in triumph. Speaking to reporters, he said he expects his time to be hard to beat, and likely to put some potential challengers off.

“That’s raised the bar a fair bit,” he said. “For sure, it’s deterred people. It’s the first really big marker.”

However, he encouraged Swiss cyclist Fabian Cancellara and Germany’s Tony Martin to make an attempt. Both are time trial specialists, although neither have Mr. Wiggins’s experience of track cycling.

“It would be nice if someone does attack it in the next 12 months, even if they fail,” he said.

Mr. Wiggins said he won’t make another attempt, and is now focusing on competing at the Rio Olympic Games in 2016, which will be his fifth.

“I won’t go for it again,” he said.

The one-hour record dates, in some form, to 1876, when it was set by an American riding a penny farthing—an old-time bike with a huge front wheel. It has captured cycling’s imagination sporadically since then, despite periods of widespread doping in the sport. Legends such as Jacques Anquetil, Fausto Coppi and Eddy Merckx all held it at points from the 1950s to the 1970s. Then, in the 1990s alone, it was broken seven times.

But since cycling’s governing body, the UCI, regulated the record beyond relevance in 2000, it lay dormant with only one improvement in 2005.

Because of arguments what constituted appropriate technology, it split into two marks. One of them, the so-called Athlete’s Hour, had to be completed on an antiquated bike similar to the one Merckx rode when he broke the record in 1972. The other, known as The Best Human Effort, allowed riders to grab every aerodynamic advantage this side of Formula One.

Cyclists stopped caring for more than a decade. So the UCI simplified the rules to make any bike that is permitted in endurance track events permissible. Since the 2014 rule change, eight men and women have made attempts, starting with veteran German cyclist Jens Voigt.

Mr. Wiggins is one of the most versatile of his generation’s leading cyclists. In addition to his 2012 Tour de France victory and Olympic medals on the track and the road, he has also been the world time trial champion.

Previous hour-record setters had described it as the toughest challenge they have faced on a bicycle, but Mr. Wiggins said it didn’t quite rival the three weeks of competing in a Tour de France.

“Try leading the Tour for two weeks,” he said. “It’s only an hour. I don’t think it will ever surpass the Tour for intensity.”

Write to Paul Hannon at paul.hannon@wsj.com