Belgian Victor Campenaerts breaks the hour record with 55.089 kilometres

On Tuesday Belgian Victor Campenearts broke Bradley Wiggins’ June 2015 hour record of 54.526-km in Aguascalientes, Mexico’s velodrome. Campenaerts rolled 55.089-km on a Ridley bike set up with 60-14 gearing.

Campenaerts races for Lotto-Soudal. He has twice been the Belgian national time trial champion and twice the European time trial champion.

. @VCampenaerts is off! Retweet this to wish him the fastest hour of his life!#UCIHourRecord #Victor2victorY pic.twitter.com/DICMSB4CRY

— Lotto Soudal (@Lotto_Soudal) April 16, 2019

To prevail the Belgian had to cover 219 laps of the 250-metre track, and if successful, he would be the sixth rider to break the record since the UCI’s 2014 rule change as to what bikes could be used. The last attempt to break the record, Dane Mikkel Bjerg’s in October 2018, was unsuccessful.

The #UCIHourRecord is currently owned by Bradley Wiggins, who covered 54.526 kilometres on the Lee Valley Park velodrome in London, the 7th of June 2015.

— Lotto Soudal (@Lotto_Soudal) April 16, 2019

Ten minutes into his effort, he was averaging 54.689 km/h. He covered 20-km in 21:48 at 55.049 km/h, while Wiggins had rolled 20-km at 54.573 km/h. At the 30-minute point he had rolled 27.5-km.

#UCIHourRecord, 30 km mark

Campenaerts 32:39.009
Wiggins 32:57.217

— ammattipyöräily (@ammattipyoraily) April 16, 2019

He was on point.

37 minutes in ?and @VCampenaerts is currently up by 500 meters compared to @SirWiggo

What an effort so far from the @Lotto_Soudal rider! ?

— UCI Track Cycling (@UCI_Track) April 16, 2019

Understandably he started to slow in the last 10-minutes. However, he eclipsed Wiggins’ marker with 38-seconds to go.

Campenaerts worked throughout the winter and set aside most early 2019 racing to concentrate on the record, training at altitude in Namibia and on the track in Aguascalientes, which sits 1800-metres above sea level. He did race Tirreno-Adriatico, where he won the final time trial.