AdventureCORPS Presents Michael Secrest - 24 Hour World Cycling Record

Photos by Chris Kostman at the ADT Event Center (LA Velodrome), Oct 22, 2006

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My good friend Michael "Bulldog" Secrest, one of the greatest superheroes of ultracycling, broke the 24-Hour Indoor World Cycling Record Sunday-Monday, October 21-22, 2006. Beginning at 910am on Sunday, Secrest circled the amazing indoor velodrome at the ADT Event Center in Carson, CA for 24 hours, covering 534.7 miles. This bettered the 530.41 mile mark set by Rod Evans in Australia in 1994.

Secrest actually bettered Evans' mark at the outdoor Dominguez Hills, CA velodrome almost exactly 10 years ago when he rode 532.74 miles in 1996. However, one record is indoor and the other outdoor, so they are recorded and recognized in different categories.

Back in 1985, Secrest rode 516.2 miles at the indoor velodrome in Montreal, using a traditional (no aero bars or aero wheels) bike. He also set the 24-hour road mark of 505 miles in Iowa in 1996. Perhaps his most outrageous, purely zen-based 24-hour effort was in 1990, when he drafted an 18-wheeler around the Phoenix Motor Speedway for 1216.81 miles over 24 hours (a 51-mile an hour average!).

Secrest also won the Race Across America in 1987 (the year I placed 9th as the youngest ever finisher) and set the still unbroken transcontinental record of seven days, 23 hours, 16 minutes in 1990.

Secrest, though 53 years old now, proved his pre-record comment that he's not a lick slower now than ten or twenty years ago. It's also impotant to note that he used the exact same bike for both his 1996 and 2006 records. The only difference was that he rode Aerospoke wheels with clinchers in 1996, while in 2006 he rode Hed wheels with tubulars.

On hand as head judge for the duration of the effort was John Marino, the godfather of ultramarathon cycling and founder of the Race Across America and Furnace Creek 508, along with long-time RAAM official Kurt Wochholz and Marino's son John and John's friend Ryan.

Click here for more info on all these records, officiated by the Ultra Marathon Cycling Association.

Click here for more info about Michael Secrest.

Click here for more info about the velodrome where Secrest broke the record.

Click here for Chuck Bramwell's images of this world record ride.