Dominic Irvine and Charlie Mitchell have smashed one of Britain's longest-lasting cycling records, riding tandem from Land's End to John O'Groats in 45 hours and 11 minutes and 2 seconds. That time is subject to ratification, but beats the previous record by more than five hours.
After setting off from Cornwall at 6.30am on Tuesday the pair rode 842 miles from the southwestern tip of England to the most northeasternly point of Scotland.
They arrived there shortly before 4am this morning, having averaged 18.63mph on their non-stop ride, almost 2mph faster than the previous record.
In a statement this morning, Dominic Irvine said: "The last couple of days have been an amazing blend of euphoria, fatigue, camaraderie, along with an enormous sense of achievement.
"We’ve been working towards this for years and it’s been a privilege to be part of such an incredible team of people. Charlie and I were the ones riding the bike, but it really was a team effort and a huge amount of work from everyone has gone into making this record attempt a success.
"We are extremely grateful to Dr Simon Jobson at Winchester University who developed our training plan, the guys at Orbit Tandems who specially designed our amazing bike, our nutritionist and all the medics, route-planners and support crew who have given up their time to support us, proof that success is a team game."
Nigel Harrison, a member of Irvine and Mitchell's support team detailed some of the problems that had to be overcome on the way to John O'Groats. He said: "The whole team has worked amazingly well together, overcoming issues including strong headwinds at times, rainstorms, traffic jams and severe fatigue, whilst maintaining totally focussed on keeping one bike, two riders, two vehicles and eight other team members all safe, fed and watered while on the road. It’s a fantastic feeling to have finally achieved something that we’ve all worked towards for so long."
The previous record of 50 hours, 14 minutes and 25 seconds had been held by Pete Swinden and John Withers, and was set in 1966.
There's a video below, posted to Instagram by Charlie's brother Ollie, of the pair arriving at John O'Groats.
Note: Their official tracker shows a shorter distance and therefore lower average speed because it plots location only every ten minutes and therefore misses out the fine details of the route.
We'll have more about this record breaking ride in the morning, but in the meantime, congratulations to both Dom and Charlie on a phenomenal achievement.
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9 comments
Congratulations to Mitchell and Irvine from Pete Swinden. Awesome effort boys; a huge well done to both of you and to the whole team
Max speed says 62.5mph. They deserve a medal just for that! Amazing effort.
I wanted to watch them come through Kinross yesterday afternoon but they were so quick I missed them!
Amazing!!!!
Good work, however I was under the impression that the distance was closer to 1,000 miles not the 780 mentioned above?
Great effort but they have been incredibly fortunate to have had a SW wind so strong for the last few days that it could knock you off your feet.
Good timing Impressive endurance to sit on a saddle for nearly 2 days
It is in the nature of place to place records that they tend to be set when conditions are favourable, and most attempts involve a certain amount of meteorological preparation. With the end to end it's usually a matter of getting a tailwind start on day 1, although the timescale means that it doesn't usually last as long as it did in this instance.
For the record (as it were) the official distance of their route is 842.6 miles. Because of the new bridges north of Inverness, when the previous record was set, it was probably more like 850, with an additional climb (the Struie) and although urban areas were probably easier to negotiate (most riders have gone a slightly shorter way through the middle of Wolverhampton, Stafford and Stoke, historically; Irvine and Mitchell took a more rural route further west) some substantial sections of main road such as the A30 in Cornwall and the A9 north of Perth have been straightened and levelled. But you can only beat what's in front of you, and they most certainly did that by a most handsome margin, and they deserve all the congratulations they get.
Been following this with slack jawed admiration - what an achievement that is! Chapeau lads.