Making History in 1 h: How Sex, Aging, Technology, and Elevation Affect the Cycling Hour Record

The purpose of this article was to analyze more than a century of cycling hour records (CHR) to examine the effects of sex, age, and altitude on cycling performance. Our hypotheses were that men's performance (distance) would exceed those of women by more than 10% but would decline at similar rates with aging and that altitude would have a small benefit, which might reach a maximum.

Data were cultivated from the Facebook World Hour Record Discussion Group's crowd-sourced database of more than 600-known-hour records and verified through extensive online research and/or personal communication. Regression and statistical modeling were produced using STATA v15.0. R2 values were used to ascertain model quality, with four distinct models being produced for comparisons. Alpha was set at 0.05 significance for all tests.

R2 values ranged from 65% to 74.9%. Women's distances were 10.8% shorter ( P < 0.001) than those of men, but the difference was narrower than either the historical elite women's difference of 14.2% or the 2022 record difference of 13.3%. Age-related decline modeling indicates performance declines significantly past age 40 yr at a rate of 1.08% per year. Altitude had a significant ( P < 0.001) marginal improvement up to 1000 m before declining. The marginal benefits of altitude were small, but this is consistent with the finding benefits reach a maximum at a moderate altitude with "benefits" becoming ambiguous starting at ~1000 m. Technological advancement was estimated to be a small but significant ( P < 0.001) improvement of ~0.18% per year.

Across decades of CHR data in well-trained endurance cyclists, men are only ~11% faster, and this difference remains stable until at least age 80 yr. CHR attempts greater than 500 m likely offer at best a small advantage. Despite small year-on-year improvements, the CHR has likely improved more than 10 km because of technological advancements.