While most of us enjoyed an extra hour of sleep across the weekend, a select few cyclists in the UK rode throughout the night in the world's longest one day cycling challenge: Red Bull Timelaps.
With this year's edition held as a virtual event in response to coronavirus precautions, over 74,000 cyclists from around the world took par. Together they rode almost 2 million miles - and played out the event's closest ever finish.
It's been a year to test the resolve of the cycling community, with blanket cancellation of cycling events meaning isolation - and virtual rides - are the new norm.
But looking on the bright side, the move to a virtual event for this year's Red Bull Timelaps saw a record field of 74,423 individual riders come together from around the world. Together they covered a total of 1,984,019 miles over the course of the weekend.
784 riders in the UK went even further and accepted Red Bull's ultimate challenge to cycle in teams of four as far as they could for a whopping 25 hours, achieving a collective 95,946 miles in total between midday Saturday 24th and midday Sunday 25th October.
Usually taking place as a physical event in Windsor Great Park, this year's event ran as a Strava based distance challenge in order to overcome social distancing restrictions brought about by COVID-19, and allow more participants than ever before to ride against the clock. Testing not only strength and speed, riders' team tactics and technical nous were challenged as they had to choose whether to ride indoors or outside, and arrange transitions with teammates sometimes hundreds of miles apart.
Taking the top step on this year's podium was Team Innovation, riding a staggering 673.91 miles over the 25 hour period. As seasoned indoor racers, Innovation were well attuned to racing on Zwift and used their experience in the virtual world of Watopia to their advantage.
"Our overall strategy was for each rider to do two-hour blocks with six hours rest in between," explains team captain Gavin Richardson.
"From our experience racing on Zwift, we knew that bridging over to groups 'up the road' and drafting was key to overall speed. With distance being doubled during the 'Power Hour' we identified this as a great opportunity to leapfrog some teams. Going into this 5 miles down in 2nd or 3rd place, we went full gas and came out with a 6 minute lead.
"Finally winning by just 0.68 of a mile, this made all the difference. Hats off to our competitors and to Red Bull for a fantastic event!"
Narrowly missing out on the coveted Red Bull Timelaps Team Trophy was team Race3R Steps, just 0.68 miles off the winning distance. They were followed by Team Vegan Jalapeños a further 1.29 miles behind.
Also choosing to undertake the whole challenge on Zwift were the winners of the Female category, Avid BSCCers. They completed 663.85 miles during the time, beating their nearest rivals by over 10 miles and placing fourth across both the male and female categories.
Avid BSCCers team captain, Alice Thomson, commented: "Good planning was key to this year's challenge. Consulting our resident Zwift expert Emily Slavin as well Redbull Timelaps veteran Jasmijn Muller before the event, we compiled a mega spreadsheet to split the efforts, kept track of everyone's distances and shared those all important Zwift playlists.
"We opted for short 40 minute turns for the majority of the event to maximise power and minimise fatigue. We also had to be really efficient with our time off the bike; allowing just enough time to warm down, stretch, eat, lie down, warm up and get going again.
"There were certainly dark times, but we enjoyed (almost) every minute. It was really great to have a competitive event to take part in with most of our other events for 2020 going out the window. I'm so proud of how our team did and looking forward to some restful days this week."
Coming in 2nd and 3rd place were the Internationelles and BV turbos with 653.39 miles and 610.13 miles respectively.
Taking the top podium in the Mixed category was the Real Fitness Race Team riding a total of 659.35 miles. Showing huge promise for the future, the Keele University Cycling Club took home bragging rights in the Under 25 category with a total of 640.30 miles.
The full list of results is now available at www.redbull.com/gb-en/events/timelaps.
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