Dan Bigham smashes UCI hour record in Switzerland

Bigham said the record, which he broke by just 459 metres, was ‘pretty mind-blowing’

Dan Bigham (PA Wire)

Britain’s Dan Bigham has set a new UCI Hour record of 55.548 kilometres, beating the previous mark set by Belgium’s Victor Campenaerts by 459 metres.

Bigham achieved the feat at the Tissot Velodrome in Grenchen, Switzerland, where he set the British record last year with a distance of 54.723km.

The 30-year-old, who works for Ineos Grenadiers as a performance engineer and made his first attempt at the record while a student in 2014, said: "I actually felt really good, my best-paced hour by far.

"I was ahead of my intended split in the first half, but I was feeling good. It was really enjoyable and it’s pretty mind-blowing how it went.

"You have to keep yourself focused on something and we focused on the basics; the three things were line, breathing and head position.

"I knew as long as I was able to control those things then everything else should fall into place, you’re just going to push the pedals as hard as you can anyway."

Bigham, who surpassed the distance set by Sir Bradley Wiggins in 2015 by just over one kilometre, added: "The step-change from previous attempts has been an ungodly amount of support from Ineos Grenadiers.

"Not just on the equipment, but it’s the physiology, the execution as well as nutritional and training interventions; they’ve stepped it up and the support I’ve had around me is second to none.

"It’s made life a whole lot easier, I’ve just had to come here and perform."