News 14 Apr 2020

Richardson completes solo 24-hour indoor cycle ride

Image: Foremost Media.

Two-time Australian SX2 champion Jackson Richardson completed a 24-hour indoor cycling challenge on Zwift over the easter weekend, riding a Concept2 BikeErg.

Richardson, 25, committed to the extraordinary challenge alongside Rockstar Energy Drink global motocross manager James Hanson in what became a world record attempt.

Richardson ended up completing a mammoth 534 kilometres in 24 hours, recording an average heart rate of 123bpm and burning 9737 calories over the duration. His ride commenced at 5:00pm on Saturday and went all the way through to Sunday afternoon.

“It started a couple of weeks ago when Dean Wilson did his first 100-mile road bike ride and we don’t even usually get a chance to attempt these sorts of things because our season is pretty much constantly going,” Richardson told MotoOnline. “When you do have time off, you normally want to take time off.

“James did it indoors on the Concept2 BikeErg then and when he did, I said I’d definitely do that, for sure. So I did the 100-mile ride and we spoke about what we were going to do next, which was initially going to be 200 miles, but I was on YouTube and came across this 24-hour indoor ride that a guy did in Britain.

“I sent it to James and he pretty much said ‘damn, so when are we doing it?’. I said ‘well, let’s do it next weekend’ and he agreed, so from that moment we were going to do it. We’d had a few at that point – but I wouldn’t say intoxicated – and were like… why not [laughs]?! There was no way in hell that I was going to quit.

“Before you know it, we were lining up to do a 24-hour ride. I can’t even explain it – it’s so gnarly. My first eight hours were solid, but from hour 10 to hour 15 it was just pure torture. My knees were hurting so bad, like my body was telling me to stop right now.

“All of a sudden I came good from hour 15 to hour 22 or so, when I pretty much got to the 500km mark and I was pretty happy with that. I took my shoes off with around two hours to go and just started turning the pedals over, just hanging on for dear life at that point. The pain was honestly indescribable.”

Hanson, meanwhile, achieved a new Concept2 BikeErg distance world record of 605km in 24 hours. A total of six people completed the entire ride including Victorian-based teenager Chandler Burns, who is a privateer in the MX Nationals and Australian Supercross Championship.

Richardson is in line to contest the entire 2020 AUS Supercross series, as well as potentially selected rounds of the MX Nationals once competition is scheduled to resume later this year. Check @jatzricho on Instagram for a complete rundown of his ride via hourly updates.