The hour record has had somewhat of a chequered past since its inception. Rules and regulations have meant that the field of professional cyclists have largely stayed away since Ondrej Sonsenka set the mark in 2005. With the UCI no doubt taking advantage of the resurgence in popularity of modern track cycling, they’ve relaxed the rules surrounding the bike specification making the hour record a target for many.Recently retired Jens Voigt set the most recent record in September, reintroducing the cycling media to hour record and all its fanfare. This record would not stand the test of time however, with the locally based IAM Cycling showing their intention shortly afterwards. One of their Austrian riders, Matthias Brändle, was the rider to take it on at the UCI’s own track at their Aigle based headquarters. It was not an easy task for Matthias, but one hour and 51.852km later he emerged victorious, beating Jen’s mark by around 700m.I set out to photograph the event in a pretty distinct style, using the Canon 45mm T-SE lens for a large percentage of the images. I sometimes even doubled it up with the Canon 1.4x extender to create a unique look. One of the great things about track cycling is the regularity of the rider crossing your path, with Matthias going around the track somewhere in the region of 300 times. Such regularity allowed me to focus exactly on what I wanted to capture leaving me with a small portfolio of images that i’d like to share with you.You can head over and see the full hour record gallery here —>>> THE HOUR RECORD.
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