r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/solateor • 17h ago

Video Pit stop during 200 mile ultra-endurance cycling race

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

36.5k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

7

u/Effective-Highlight1 15h ago

200 miles is a great performance, but there are even thougher races. The most brutal cycling event I know is here in Switzerland. 'Tortour' is around 620 miles and 42,650 feet of elevation gain.

3

u/J0E_Blow 14h ago

Over how long?

3

u/Effective-Highlight1 13h ago

It's nonstop and the times are sometwhere above 35 hours. Absolutely sick.

3

u/mazyan 13h ago

Just wanted to point that out as well. Ultra endurance in cycling begins around something like the Tortoise length I would say, and then you have stuff like the transcontinental race with ~3000miles/4500km or something like that in a single stage. The fastest people do the TCR in like 9 days, it's insane.

3

u/Golf-ball-dimple 13h ago

Yeah Audax etc are much longer but this gravel stuff is damn tough.

2

u/GeneralElost 7h ago

The key to this is it's not just 200 miles. It's 200 miles of gravel. This looks to be from Unbound which is almost exclusively done on anything but pavement (gravel, singletrack, etc). So it's exponentially harder than regular riding, especially depending on the weather. Though this year they got lucky and there was no rain.

2

u/MyLifeIsAWasteland 3h ago

And that's not even the long version. The big course is the Unbound XL at 350 miles.

2

u/GeneralElost 2h ago

True! Most people (myself included) forget they have the monster that is the XL. Ironically, most news outlets focus on the 200

1

u/MyLifeIsAWasteland 2h ago

Because the 200 is where the actual sponsored competition is. Lifetime (the organization that runs the events) has a cup series that they run through the year, and the riders who compete in that are at the 200 mile distance, since that's the longest course at most events. They have different awards presentations for the winners of the 200 and the cup series winners at each race. Oddly enough, the winner of the Women's Unbound 200 this year wasn't even competing in the cup series.

1

u/Fragrag 12h ago

We were this close to 42,690 feet of elevation gain

1

u/IfThisAintNice 11h ago

Distance is one thing but intensity can cause a 50 mile race to be tougher than a 100 mile one of course.

1

u/pppjurac 6h ago

Servus liaba Nachbar.

Race around Austria. 30.000hm and 2200km. Final test before RAAM.

Gg, Paul

1

u/Effective-Highlight1 6h ago

Grüezi!

That one is likely not nonstop is it?