Steven Abraham, Kurt Searvogel chase Tommy Godwin's year of cycling record

Bicycling​

Kurt Searvogel Breaks the Year Mileage Record
Bicycling
Two days before he would break the record for the most miles cycled in a single year, “Tarzan” Kurt Searvogel rode in the darkness around a circuitous seven-mile trail in Flatwoods Park, on the outskirts of Tampa, Florida. The wide beam of his bike light illuminated a tunnel of tall pines. Over a swampy creek, a hawk swooped across his path. A deer watched through the forest. Wild boars prowled the brush.

It had been a good day for Tarzan, and his energy was palpable. With the aid of a half dozen volunteer pacers, he had averaged over 20 mph for the past 12-plus hours, and on this evening he would accrue 240 miles total. He had ridden 221 miles the day before. And 226 miles the day before that. And so on.

After 11 months and three weeks of near-consecutive 200-plus mile days of cycling, he sat at the cusp of breaking a 75-year-old cycling mark, the highest annual mileage record (or, HAM’R). About 320 miles of the 75,065 total miles he needed to become the new HAM’R champion remained.

For Tarzan, that meant roughly a day and a half more of riding.

The sky was clear and the air warm, and Searvogel...

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WPXI Pittsburgh​

After finishing 75000-mile bike ride in Hillsborough, record-setter sleeps in
Tampabay.com
After breaking a world record Monday by riding his bike more than 75,065 miles in a year, Kurt "Tarzan" Searvogel figured he deserved it. So instead of slinging a leg over his bike at 6 a.m. like he usually does, the 52-year-old started his ride at Flatwoods Wilderness Park two hours later, even though he has four more days to add to his overall mileage.

"It's done. It's broken," he said during a break in the ride. "Everything now is just padding and making it harder for someone else to beat."

With friends and wife cheering him on, the "ultracyclist" from Little Rock, Ark., rolled past a 76-year-old record for the most miles ridden in one year. It was previously held by Tommy Godwin, a British cyclist who rode 75,065 miles in 1939.

Searvogel's 365-day Odyssey, which is being tracked and certified by the UltraMarathon Cycling Association, began last January at an annual long-distance ride in Jupiter, and it will end there Saturday. But the record fell at Flatwoods Park.

Along the way, the chiseled software engineer with the shock of blond hair and goatee rode in eight states, collided with two cars, trashed a few bikes, got married, was diagnosed with asthma, got a scare from an irregular heartbeat, burned about 4 million calories and made many friends.

By the end of the day Monday, he'd ridden 75,117 miles and will probably hit 76,000 by the time he's done. That's an average of 200 miles per day and between 12 to 14 hours a day in the saddle.

That's three times around the earth. It's Miami to Jacksonville 217 times, or Miami to Seattle, Wash., 22 times. It's more than some cycling enthusiasts will ride in a lifetime.

Searvogel, who got his nickname for...

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Cycling Weekly​

Comment: Why I think Kurt Searvogel's annual cycling record deserves our respect
Cycling Weekly
When we posted the news on Monday that Kurt Searvogel had broken Tommy Godwin’s 1939 mark to set a new highest annual mileage record for a cyclist, there was a surprising number of people who were less than charitable about his amazing feat.

At the time of writing, the 53-year-old American still has four days left in which to accumulate mileage, and has totalled 75,437 to beat Godwin’s 77-year-old record of 75,065 miles. That’s an astounding 209 miles per day.

Naturally, anyone clocking up that sort of mileage day in, day out, without a break deserves respect, whether they did it for a week, a month or a whole year. Searvogel is also currently achieving this at an average speed of over 19mph. Some days over 20mph.

I know that personally I would struggle to ride 50 miles at 19mph, let alone four times that distance having also done it the day before. And the day before that. And the day before that…

“Wow. Must be awsome [sic] to be able to ride your bike for 12 hours a day everyday on lovely, sunny, flat roads on a lovely new hi tech bike. This ‘record’ doesn’t come close to the 1939 feat,” wrote one Facebook user.

“I agree with comments, Tommy had snow to contend with, adapted butchers steel bike. Kurt rides in Florida weather on a fairy bike,” said another.

And most strangely: “Doesn’t count, for me this has to be in one calendar year, starting and ending on Jan 1.”

Although these comments give a lot of respect to Godwin’s original record – ridden on a bike of the era and on roads of the era – they give little respect to Searvogel’s achievement. It’s the sort of thinking that saw the UCI Hour Record die a miserable and lonely death before the ridiculous rules about using out-dated equipment were scrapped.

Do you have to make things as hard as possible for yourself, otherwise the record isn’t ‘real’ or ‘worthy’? Imagine if that was applied to every journey made in everyday life. “I’m walking into work today, backwards, with no shoes on, over broken glass and with a full sack of squirming eels on my back, otherwise I don’t deserve to be employed.”

I should point out that it was this magazine (then known simply as Cycling) that created the record in 1911...


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Kurt Searvogel Cycles 75065 Miles In A Year…And Keeps Going
WBUR
“Normally I'll wake up around 5:00 and get some breakfast,” Searvogel said, “and be on the bike around 6:00, pretty much ride until about 8:00 or 9:00 at night. Keep it to a 14-15 hour day and then — and then get enough sleep to keep going for the next day.”

This has been Searvogel’s schedule for 365 days in a row. Wake up. Ride 200 miles. Upload the data from his GPS. Eat and sleep.

On Monday, 53-year-old Kurt Searvogel passed mile 75,065, breaking the “Highest Annual Mileage Record” — or HAM’R. A 26-year-old Brit named Tommy Godwin set that mark in 1939, and for more than 75 years Godwin’s record was considered unbreakable.

Kurt Searvogel did the undoable with five days to spare, which means he had most of this week to pad his record.

“A lot of my fans are like, ‘Ride, ride, ride! Make it really hard, make it impossible to break.” said Searvogel.

“It’s like, ‘OK, whatever. When the weather’s nice, I’ll ride. When not, I’ll do something else. Like a sane person.'”

There’s nothing sane about cycling the distance equal to three times around the earth in a single year. And no one knows that better than Dave Barter.

Barter has spent the last decade researching the history of the HAM’R — a mark that until 2015 went by the less boastful name “The Year Record.” For his book, “The Year,” Barter even attempted 200 miles in a single day.

“Well, I’ve done it a couple of times, and it has destroyed me both times,” Barter said. “It’s a very long day. You’re looking at 12 to 14 hours in the saddle continuously turning the peddles out there in the elements.”

But after those 200 mile days, Barter never said to himself, “Boy, I want to do that again for 364 more days.”

“I absolutely did not,” Barter confirmed.

HAM’R History
Barter is fascinated with cyclists, first in the U.S. and then in Britain, who began tackling enormous distances as far back as the 1890s. He calls them the “mile eaters.”

“So this is how Tommy Godwin, for example, would have been described in his day?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” Barter said. “In his day he was effectively the king of the mile eaters. They weren’t riding for scenery, and they weren’t riding to win races. They were riding to eat miles, and this is how they became known as the mile eaters.”

Sometimes mile eaters...


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