Frenchman Robert Marchand has today set a new Hour Record in the Masters 105+ category. The 105-year-old covered a distance of 22.547 kilometres.
Marchand’s ride is the first ever for the category of Masters cyclists aged 105 or over and he covered the distance at the French national velodrome in Saint Quentin en Yvelines near Paris.
Afterwards he said: “I could have done better, if I had seen the record card, otherwise I would pedaled slightly faster.”
For Marchand though, the important thing was not to set the record, but to show people what can still be done at that age.
“I’m not here to break any record,” he said afterwards. “I’m doing it to prove that at 105 years old you can still ride a bike.”
Marchand was already the holder of the Hour Record for the 100+ category. In 2014, he covered a distance off 26.925km at the same velodrome.
Marchand was born on 26 November 1911 and he finished seventh in the Grand Prix des Nations in 1946. He returned to cycling in 1978 and continued training after his 100th birthday. In February 2012 he set a world record in one-hour track cycling in the over-100 age group at 24.250m before improving this record in January 2014.
