There seem to be loads of records for South Downs Way, South Downs Way double, on a singlespeed, then the West Highland Way, probably a singlespeed, and a double record, and then lots of others (Pennine Way, Coast to Coast, End to End, etc etc).
Where are these records kept/viewable, and who ratifies them?
Just want to have a gawp at some of the impossible things that have been done by people calling themselves mere mortals......
British Cycling? At a guess..
What about "Hardest ride with a hangover"? LOL!
I'm not sure it's as formal as that...
sdw double has its own website http://www.southdownsdouble.net/
tbh, there's not many people doing this type of thing fast enough to get a record and they mostly all know each other anyway...
CTC - they will still be around in 100 years
Hey people,it's as formal as the people involved have time to make it.
All the rides on the SDD are ratified in one way or another, everyone who has had a go has googled "South Downs Double", found the website, and got in contact with someone or another.
Rides are seen off and back by other riders and normally local riders and supportes will pop out onto the trail to watch riders coming past. Often the rider will carry a GPS logger too, to prove that they did it too.
For my Singlespeed Double ride I sent my schedule to local riders, phoned in at the start finish and turn and was joined by KMP rider Lea, who turned up unannounced and rode behind me for a chunk (so as not to interfere with my rides or the gates).
If you're going to go that fast, chances are that people will have heard of you, and that you'll be in contact with fast people or maybe sponsors, who will get the word spread to make sure the ride can be ratified.
Oh, and as there's no cash, no podium, just yourself to beat, these are quite personnal rides, so I really can't believe anyone who had enough of a love of cycling to be out enough to get record threatening times, would even have the thought of cheating cross their mind!
However, for the SDD, the website is, as it says up there: http://www.southdownsdouble.net/
It's all still quite a new thing really. For the Pennine Bridleway, which has been completed successfully in one hit by just Steve Heading and Rob Lee, the finish times are 21:39 & 26:43, impressive stuff, as this is much more intimidating terrain and far more isolated in places than the SDW should it go a bit wrong.
The SDD website is a great resource, and helped me enormously in my preparation
A reason for the question:
I have just done the Trans Cambrian Way, with Polaris kit (tent etc) in 13 hours. It's 105 miles, and as I was only 30 mins or so slower than John Houlihan's time of 12:25, and because I think there is a good hour to come off my time, I think it is worth a crack, before the fast lot get wind that there is another trail out there that needs an even faster record setting. Sounds like me saying I have ridden it, with a GPS log as some kind of evidence, is not really sufficient - I would need to tell lots of people first (which I am reluctant to do as I like to operate without lots of fanfare etc). Plus I am reluctant to go through the ride again in one stint if someone else has already done it in 8 hours, as I could never get that quick.
Well the SDW stuff is 'kept' by Rory Hitchens from USE, sounds like you need someone similar to do the same for the TCW.
I thought there was some sort of agreed level of support as well. Weren't some the record holders carrying all their food + clothing for the ride and only topping their water?
ac282 - most of the sdw ones now are done 'Alpine Style' which means nop external support - you can fill up at the 'official' water stops etc but not have someone hand you a bottle.
as above, it's largely self-policed by people who are doing it as a personal challenge so it's being done on an 'honour' system.
Rory seems to be the one who 'keeps the books upto date' and he (and USE) been very supportive of riders doing the sdw in the past.
Hmmmm
large418 - I think you're missing the point. These endurance challenges are set up with the idea of being personal challenges, where the aim is to complete them in under 24hrs (or similar), only a very few go much faster, and plenty just try and finish at all.
There is never any focus on just going outright fast, the SDD (I guess the main ride of all of these) satisfaction is completing. There is no focus on the fsastest one way time, and this is for good reason: Lots and lots of poeple can complete a one way, and encouraging people to race on a public trail is only going to be bad for the sport. If the peoper fast boys have a go, they can go very, very fast indeed for 100miles and it no longer bcomes a matter of "can I do it?" and very much becomes "how fast can I go?" for everyone, which will get riders and mtb-ing in trouble and end in tears for everyone. You yourself are already talking not of whether you can complete but focussed entirely on just how fast you can do it. The much shorter "half" rides also involve no night riding and don't involve the trucky kit, food, hyration etc. issues of the 24hr-ish rides
Now, if you were to try a Cambrian Way Double, and get that under (or near) 24hrs, I think you're onto something. If you're talking about how fast you can go on a ride someone can pop out in 8hrs, then I think you're missing the point. Look at the SDW, there is, very deliberately, zero focus on one-way times.
As for support, there's two categories kept, "Alpine" where zero support is allowed, and "Supported" where any level of support (except a Cancelara style motor!) is allowed; food & clothing handouts, bike swaps etc.
So, without wanting to be overly negative - GET OUT THERE AND DO THE TCW DOUBLE! 
There is never any focus on just going outright fast,
You want to tell Ian Leitch that Rob, he sets out solely to ride it very fast indeed, one way or two 
GET OUT THERE AND DO THE TCW DOUBLE!
Alpine.
http://www.davebuchanan.co.uk/blog/4978239623783472508/
Good place for info, got a loose set of rules on there and some times for a few routes they've done.
I'm doing the Welsh Coast to Coast this weekend...204 miles and 11k climbing...wish me luck...not doing a record attempt as camping and cider involved 
As for support, there's two categories kept, "Alpine" where zero support is allowed, and "Supported" where any level of support (except a Cancelara style motor!) is allowed; food & clothing handouts, bike swaps etc.
I was surprised when I read somewhere that even ice cream vans and the like were off limits for "Alpine" attempts. I'd assumed that anything available to all riders would have been fair - so local shops and so on can be used for resupplies, as in the GDR/TDR.
For "Alpine" attempts, the rules are, with the exception of public water taps and streams that are available 24hrs a day, "carry it on, carry it off". Using even shops limits the start times, and makes certain start places and timings advantageous, which makes it mor of a logistical effort for some. This wy it also stays very simple.
Ian's time is only 38mins faster than my SS ride! However, the number of "fast" rides is very few and far between, and extreme care is taken to hold gates for people, chat, wave, smile etc. These are quite special and heavily planned rides. Plus these are done on week days (yes, this means it involves a holiday day from work). What is to be avoided is several people, every weekend, going balls out across the Downs, shouting at families on a Sunday stroll to get out of the way while they have an Sinday afternoon stroll.
The current rate of 1-2 record runs a year and "a few" 24hr rides is something that's, hopefully sustainable, but as rides like the trailquest lemming and the BHF randonee show, a one way ride is achieveable by, literally, hundreds of even "occasional" riders with a bit of support.
resurrecting this thread with (self indulgent but I don't care) news of the new Trans Cambrian record - set last weekend by twinklydave and yours truly.
http://40psi.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/trans-cambrian-way-jobs-a-good-un/
http://www.twinklydave.com
it's a right old faff of a route though.
The records are kept in a Spiderman biscuit tin IIRC.
I know I shouldn't ask this but what is the SDW one way time likely to be?
Sub 5 hours?
Terrahawk, good effort (just read the blog) ... living in mid wales I can certainly vouch for the amount of poo and the potential navigation problems. Are you considering a double attempt?
Thanks Terrahawk,
you're just rubbing it in that you followed in my tyre tracks until I bailed!
Fair play to you though - was a great ride (yours, not mine).
Just reading the RobDeanHove responses above (that I hadn't read before), and although I kind of agree that if everyone did one way record attempts, the trails would be full of riders upsetting families etc, the TCW is a seldom ridden route. Both times I have done it, the first time I saw no one at all, the 2nd time I saw a single set of tyre tracks that were days old. I think that the SDW is more often ridden - more people know about it, it's easier to get to and from, and to link both ends, and it's more visible (in that BHF organise randonnees etc). You only know about the TCW if you go looking for it.
However, that said, I will be having a good think about a TCW double next year. 24 hours is achievable, but it would have to be the right combination of weather, dry terrain (it's a soggy slow route otherwise)and daylight hours. Oh, and fitness comes into it as well (or I might have imagined that bit). Just need to convince the other half that more time on my bike is a good idea.
Sub 5 hours for 100 miles and 11,000 ft of climbing. On a motorbike maybe :O)
I'd say around 7.5-8 hours. Think Charlie Useless holds that record.
Something useful for folks thinking of doing this kind of thing on whatever route they're interested in might be to go and look at the 'ethics' type posts on http://www.bikepacking.net
Among the kind of issues raised are the difference between an MTB race mentality (even if its 24 hr races) and this kind of thing. One of the main rules for the equivalent events in the states is that you have to follow every inch of the track, and if you detour off you have to go back to the point you left the route and start again onwards from there. As many attempts on different routes are done on an 'honour' system, this is obviously impossible to police. While, as RobDeanHove points out, you would hope cheating doesn't cross peoples minds, deliberate or inadvertent missing of parts of the route does happen. Some folks have disqualified themselves from record times, completions of multi day and week routes, or 'wins' in mass start time trials on these kind of routes, sometimes months later when they look at gps records maps etc and realise they went off route. Equally, people even with GPS or Spot signals showing they went off route, or eyewitness accounts of them being in the wrong place, have argued vehemently that they were only a little lost or denied completely they were off route, showing that some folks don't stick to the 'gentlemans agreement' type rules.
It sounds petty but the 'returning to the point you left the route' type 'rules' are pretty much needed to make this kind of thing work. It's easy to say that of course you would always follow them, but when you're at the bottom of the wrong hill at 3 am in a thunderstorm and there is a 5 mile uphill back to the point you left the course or a couple of hundred yards to rejoin further on its not always the easiest thing to do the right thing...
The one I'm most interested in is seeing someone head oop north and have a crack at the Coast to Coast in under 24hrs. Rich Rothwell had a great go last year - see here for report. He had crappy weather and I'm sure would have been much closer at cracking the 24hr time if it had been nicer. Have done it a few times as multiday rides, and would love to attempt a 24, but would also want to finish and knowing that you have to take all your kit alpine style makes things that little harder - if you plan on food etc for say 30 hours then you're going to be going slower than if you packed for 24 hrs, which means you might take 33 hours, which means you need more food etc etc!
Good luck to anyone attempting something along these lines!
If you could beat the record time, but no-one would ever know you had, would you still do it? Always an interesting question for folk who claim that it's all a personal challenge, not about the record etc... Not aimed at anyone in particular, but I always wonder how much about personal satisfaction these things really are and how much is ego gratification.
BWD - do they have to be mutually exclusive? Can you not gratify your ego by finishing a challenge you were uncertain about being able to make, or as you say by beating a record but not bragging about it? I think it's down to the individuals psyche, some folks are naturally self deprecating/modest, others like to brag...
I don't know. It's based on a mountaineering thing, there are quite a few mountains you can't officially climb, and for some people just being there and climbing the mountain is enough. For others being able to tell people that you've done it is an intrinsic part of the experience, to the point where if they couldn't brag about it, they wouldn't do it. I don't really have an answer, I think it's down to the individual and not necessarily right or wrong either way.
BWD - I tend to think that if you have done something you are truly proud of (whether it's because you beat everyone else, or just yourself), then there is no harm in telling people. But the trick is knowing when to stop telling people - that's when the big egos become tiresome. Having said that, I am not aware of people on here having big egos (OK, there's a few, but they tend not to have bike egos, just "I am always right" egos). As you say, it's down to the individual and there's no right or wrong way.
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