Following last year’s record breaking race in Vianden, Dizzy beat his own 24-hour distance on a cycling track by twelve kilometres.
Although still to be officially confirmed, the new record for now stands at 927 kilometres.
Dizzy broke another record during the race, namely the fastest time to complete 500 miles: 20 hours, 41 minutes, and twelve seconds.The former record stood at 21 hours, one minute, and 44 seconds.
The ultra cyclist was also flirting with another world record, the fastest time for 1,000 kilometres, but he opted against it due to both mental and physical fatigue.
The start of the attempt had to be pushed back by almost two hours because of technical issues, but at 3.42pm yesterday, Ralph “Dizzy” Diseviscourt got on his bike.
Shortly after 10.30pm, the ultra cyclist had completed 275 kilometres, which put him slightly behind the rate he had when he set the world record in 2020. However, in contrast to last year’s effort, Dizzy planned on cycling at a constant speed this time instead of building up an advantage at the beginning.
After twelve hours of cycling, Dizzy had completed 475.2 kilometres, which still kept him ten minutes behind his 2020 rate. Nevertheless, during the early Sunday morning hours, he had increased his speed and managed to surpass last year’s rate.
Dr Jacques Mehlen, who was monitoring the attempt of the cyclist, commented on the first 16 hours of racing: “Right from the beginning, Ralph had stomach issues and experienced difficulties when eating and drinking. Over night, we thus tried reducing the volume of liquid he needs to consume. However, this simultaneously means that his carbohydrate intake will go down. He therefore has to increase his water intake, especially once temperatures go up again.”
Around 8am on Sunday, another problem occurred: there was a power shortage in the wider region, which meant that all electronic equipment became unusable and had to be replaced manually.
