The One Hour Challenge Winners

Back in January we challenged you to ride as many metres of Elevation as you could, in no more than one hour. The challenge involved plotting a route, to pack in as much elevation as you thought you could ride in an hour, and then, riding it, and finishing within the hour. Many tried, many failed, but many succeeded. 

A reminder, there were rules to our competition: (SEE HERE)

1. The route must start and finish at the same place.

2. You cannot ride the same road twice, and cannot double back on yourself, or criss-cross at any point. You cannot ride up and down the same climb.

3. You have 60 minutes to complete the challenge. You can ride for less than an hour, but not a second more. You must return back to the starting location in 60 minutes or less, not a second more.

4. The ride can be done virtually on Zwift etc, but it must still meet our other rules. 

The Winners

Congratulations go to our three winners, who were all drawn at random from the hundreds of entries we received from across the globe, from Birmingham to Bermuda. Each winner takes home a £500 voucher to spend on our website. 

The 900m Barrier  

Whilst our challenge was never about rewarding those who could climb the most, kudos must be awarded to those who rose higher than all others. From early on in the challenge, we could see that climbing anything over 600m was very impressive, and seriously quick, so kudos to Sylvain, Jonathan and Mary, who took spots 1, 2 and 3 overall.

The results also show that you don't need to live in the mountains to be able to pack in a serious amount of elevation, as two of the top 3 results worldwide came from the UK.

Our ambassador and former national hill climb champion Ed Laverack tried to break the 900m barrier, which was always going to be a serious challenge. You can WATCH HIS VIDEO HERE 

The Global Results

We received entries from all corners of the globe, and below, you can see the averages of the six countries who submitted the most rides overall. With the global average of 468m being a solid benchmark to base your rides on. 

We had some amazing feedback from riders who had given our challenge a go, with many failing by agonising seconds, some by minutes, and some, who maybe didn't understand the rules and submitted rides of 1500m and 2 hours of riding! Kudos for trying though folks! (Yes, those results were excluded) 

Take Part

Whilst the competition has now closed, we highly recommend you give the challenge a go. It will give you a target to aim for, and a route you can challenge yourself on throughout the year, to see how your fitness is improving month on month, or year on year.

CLICK HERE for full details of the challenge, and good luck!

A final thanks to the many hundreds of you who took part. We hope you enjoyed it, and we hope you have another go at the route later in the year to see how you compare.