Cory Wallace’s 374-km 24-Hour Worlds winning ride is bonkers
Canadian posts incredible numbers on his way to his fourth championship title
How hard is it to win a 24-Hour Solo Mountain Bike World Championship title? Canada’s Cory Wallace won his fourth-straight 24-Hour World Championships title on the weekend. It’s an impressive feat just to be that strong for so many years. The staggering stats that it took to win his 2022 title show just how hard Wallace had to fight to win his latest world championship title.
To Everest, and beyond
Kona’s Canadian endurance expert shared his race stats from Finale Ligure on Strava. Wallace covered an incredible 374 km of singletrack in 23 hours 27 minutes. That means an average of 16 km/h, maxing out at 49 km/h.
Along the way, Wallace powered histwo Kona Hei Hei’s up a daunting 9,671 metres of elevation gain (and loss). That’s not technically Everesting (that has to be done on a single climb), but it is absolutely wild elevation total. Especially considering the course is all off-road and mostly on technical trails, not an “easy” 9,671 m of paved roads.
All of this took place in soaring temperatures, too. The mercury rose as high as 38 degrees Celsius during the race. Overnight temperatures, which usually provide some relief to 24-Hour racers, didn’t even drop below 20 degrees, keeping the average temperature at a sweltering 28 C.
Wallace completed 32 laps of the 11.7-km lap in Finale Ligure. His closest rival, Marcello Ugazio of Italy, matched that total, but took 19:41 longer, giving Wallace the title.
The Canadian shared more stats, including food and fluid consumption during the race and his pit stop numbers, on Instagram.
How do you prepare for an 374-km mountain bike effort? If you’re Cory Wallace you turn a bikepacking safari across the Serengeti into a training camp – and nab a FKT on the world’s tallest free-standing mountain along the way.
