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BerlinFeb2006eng24-hours record attempt in BerlinOn the 21st-22nd February 2006 German Christian Ascheberg tried to set a new 24-hours record in the Berlin Velodrome. The record was set in May 1995 by fellow German Axel Fehlau and stood at 1021.36 km (See the IHPVA list of records). I had been invited to observe the record attempt by Christoph Hipp of the German HPV association who had also organised the attempt. The velodrome was very kindly lent them for free(!) by Berliner Radsport Verband who also had a couple of people present during the entire attempt. To cover various expenses (e.g. the night technician) the German association had collected a nice sum of money from its members, who in this way helped share the challenge. An agreement had also been made with a person (Heinz Wewers) who would get regular news updates via telephone approximately every hour and put these onto the internet. There was no internet access inside the velodrome. I made a lot of notes during the attempt and will here present them largely as they were written. This gives an impression of how the mood/atmosphere developed during the attempt. All photos on this page were taken by myself; some of them have been enhanced for brightness using the gimp. --TorbenThellefsen 26.feb.2006 01:31 ~17:00 16:37 - An impression of Berlin Velodrom I've been here for about half an hour now and Christian Ascheberg just drives round and round on the track in a fairly constant speed. The lap times vary from 18.9 to 19.3 sec (46.6-47.6 km/h). Usually he keeps his bike just above the black line on the track, but sometimes he takes a higher path into a curve or levels out just a little late. It's hard to determine whether he's doing it on purpose or because he's not used to driving on a track. The lap times sometimes rise to over 20 sec, after which he increases speed and makes som 18.2 second laps. It's quite obvious from the noise the bike makes when he changes his speed (could maybe be the Rohloff gearhub we hear?). And suddenly he starts singing! Or at least humming...  16:38 - Christian Ascheberg in a curve. Christoph Hipp and I discussed earlier how boring it must be to drive 24 hours almost straight ahead. On a velodrome you don't have to steer a lot in the curves, so it's more or less straight ahead all the time. In a practice session some months ago Ascheberg is said to have crashed because he drove too slowly; that might explain why he's keeping a fairly high pace right now. ~17:15The first two hours have just passed and he's done ~370 laps (92.5 km) which will bring the record home safely. But he hasn't made a stop yet, so it's difficult to guess the end result. The target appears to be somewhere between 1060-1100 km, with the current record being 1021.36 km.  20:16 - Observers: Man from BRV, Felix, (?), Eggert Bülk According to Hipp, Ascheberg has an ability to "meditate" while driving and not take much notice to what's going on around him. Or rather: he doesn't depend on the landscape and lighting changing, which is a clear advantage here in the velodrome. The velodrome has a constant temperature (~22 celcius), humidity (~50%) and constant light level. If you can't handle this monotony you'd have a problem. A bit about the bike (see also pictures of the bike), called "Bülk 2". It's a Zox 20Z, and so has frontwheel drive. This one has a Rohloff gearhub. Around this bike, Eggert Bülk of Hamburg has built a fairing. Eggert is of course present to observe the attempt and help Christian Ascheberg. The fairing looks fairly aerodynamic despite not covering more than half of the wheels and that Ascheberg sits with his head out. But this bike (as it's used here) is also used for long bikerides on public roads. Actually, Ascheberg set a new racerecord for recumbents at the 24-hours race in Schött in Schwitzerland in October 2005 by driving 904.7 km. Towards the front of the bike are two bumps for the feet, and on the "door" to open for entry/exit are two extra bumps - for the hands, I assume (it turned out to be for the knees). Just in front of the driver the fairing rises to direct the airflow above and past him. Behind him is a "fin" or tail that almost extends perfectly from his helmet. He drives with regular spoked wheels, thus without the small advantage that discwheels would/could provide. But does he need that? According to Hipp, Ascheberg drove the 904 km in Schwitzerland without being under pressure at any time. His heartrate was around the 115-120 all the way. In that race, he held about 8 minutes of break (either per break or in total) and I get the impression that it's the plan also this time to only make two breaks of 4 minutes each.  20:21 - Speeding past Not too long ago he passed 2:24, ie. 10% of the time. He had then driven 447 laps and if you extrapolate that a little and deduct 8 minutes of laps (plus som for stopping/restarting) we end at around 1110 km - a remarkable improvement of the record. Because I took a train here - and thus have to take a train home, and because he started his attempt relatively late, I'll not be able to attend the last hour and a half. That sucks, but I must hope that the tendency is clear at that time and that I'll be able to see that the record is within reach. It's a bit like Le Mans: Anything can happen in those 24 hours and first of all you have to finish! A couple of intermediate lap counts
I'm a bit surprised that noone "celebrates" these turns of the hour or cheer him on in other ways. But I assume he's asked people not to do that so he's able to better concentrate? I wave a little to him anyway ~21:00 20:36 - Pause: Christian Ascheberg, Martin, Felix. About 20:35-20:46 Christian Ascheberg took his first break. He's woking rather hard (heartrate ~130), but his legs are cold. Some tape was removed from the helmet for better airflow, and took on new water and a bowl of soup. We people beside the track have for some time heard a "new" sound from the bike and Ascheberg confirmed that something inside the bike as rubbing on something else, but he didn't feel that it was immediately fixable. He asked to get an indication (on a board or such) of the average speed he will need to maintain to win the record. It's currently around 42.4 km/h including breaks.  20:45 - On the way back on the track after the break After the break his laptimes once again fall to the 19s where they before the break were in the 20s, sometimes 21s. But it doesn't take long before he's back in the 20s ... He and Eggert Bülk have an agreement that Eggert waves at him from the trackside if the laptimes go into the 21s, and this happens occasionally. On top of that there's a fairly large bell by the track, apparently to be used if he looks to be falling asleep! Intermediate time
This projects rather nicely to 1054 km for the 24 hours, if he can maintain the speed and duration of breaks. 0:05I've just taken over the job of counting laps after a few hours of sleep, which I needed badly.  00:13 - Third break - Martin, (?), (?), Felix, Christian So does Ascheberg, it seems, because he's just parked for his third pause - the 2nd was held while I slept. By then he had problems with his circulation: a heartrate of 150, which fell to 120 again after the break. Now he's again sitting by "ringside" and resting. I was allowed to sleep in one of the offices at the velodrome by a nice man from Berliner Radsport Verband - and that's then another thing to thank them for. They have lent the velodrome to HPV EV for free (except a "nightfee" for a technician), which undoubtedly only was possible because noone would be training here anyway (they're all on Mallorca or other such places). We have two former trackracers sitting here, watching the attempt and telling stories about trackcycling in Berlin. Christoph replies with a.o. numbers about the 200m sprint and 1-hour records for recumbents. They seem impressed without wanting to show it too much It's a large complex here: Besides the velodrome itself which seats 18000 spectators, there are offices, coach offices, workshops, and ergometerroom. At the entrance sits two guards, and at the moment a female nightwatch with a dog sits in one of the hallways near the entrance. Next to the velodrome is a swimminghall and a sportshall, and I believe that someone earlier mentioned that they train for (nearly) every olympic disciplin here (summer Olympics, that is). The word comes from Aschebergs helpers that he's again suffering heartrate and circulation problems and no longer believes the record to be within reach 0:27The break has now lasted 20 minutes and Ascheberg looks like he's ready again. He's put on long trousers now, because his legs are still cold - and it wasn't possible to heat the hall ... He gets in, takes some more water onboard, closes the bike and off he goes! I count a "short lap", which we do for his in/out laps. We have a special counter for that. The rest of the lapcounting job consists of writing down each minute how many laps he's driven and, for statistics, the lap time for the latest lap. The lap count and time is read off a display which is connected to photosensor that detects him passing. When he passes, we get the lap time for a few seconds, then the number of laps so far, after which the display returns to showing running time for current lap. 0:43 - 14.5 hours leftHe must drive 43.4 km/t for the remaining hours if he's going to beat the record. At the moment he's constantly doing more than 45 ... but he'll probably need more breaks as well ... We measure one particular lap to 17.95 sec - 50.14 km/h! 1:33Christian is getting into the bike again after another (short) break - it was only almost an hour since the last break ... 2:00 02:30 - Can you see the suffering? I've handed over the lapcounting to someone else and can write a little again. It's becoming more and more evident that the record will not be beaten this time. If he's going to have time to take 30 minutes more of pause for the last 13+ hours he'll have to maintain at least 45 when he's driving. For the moment he's doing around 41-43. In itself rather good, but not enough. Actually the others say that he knows it's impossible, but that he'll attempt to complete the 24 hours to see how far he gets. There is also his own personal record of 904 km to beat. They also say that this trackracing is too boring, even for him. I heard of Axel Fehlaus record attempt that he drove like crazy for the first 12 hours in order to beat the 12-hour record, and then just rode fast enough to beat the 24-hour record as well (and got the 1000km "for free"). At an earlier attempt it had gone terribly wrong and they had to rush him to hospital after 20-21 hours because of exhaustion. He had been so exhausted that he couldn't himself feel that something was wrong ...  02:31 - Blurry, yet suffering (After my return home I've seen that the 12-hour and 24-hour records are not set on the same day, so if the story above is true he didn't actually beat the 12-hour on that occasion - the records are dated about three weeks apart). 2:1311 hours, 1797 laps, 449.25 km. Not bad for 11 hours, but not really good enough for a new record. Very theoretically he could reach 980 km -- very theoretically. 2:40 02:36 - Timekeepertable with a yellow flash behind. Lap time is ~ 22.4x I have just - again - tried to get some good pictures of the bike in motion. But there's not really light enough that my camera will take good pictures with fast shutter speeds - so let's just say that the in motion part is probably the most visible in the pictures. I dare not use my flash for fear of disturbing or blinding Christian Ascheberg. Also made a small movie clip - perhaps I can framegrab an OK picture from it? Ascheberg is still driving lap times in the 22s ... 3:07Christian Ascheberg officially gave op at 2:52 in a break that started 2:43. He's done 1875 laps - 468.75 km. We are all around him; he needs help. 4:40Everything is almost packed down again. The lap timer/counter was turned off and taken down long ago, and the hall is quiet now. Christian was forced to give up because he couldn't maintain the motivation to just keep going round and round and round ...  03:12 - Front view of the bike. In the background Ascheberg on the floor He also said that it had been very difficult to train properly during the winter; after 4-5 hours on the road he would be so cold that he didn't want to continue. And 24 hours on the road is nowhere near the same as 24 hours on a track. He was very very tired/weak just after the attempt and lay on the floor trembling, partly from cold from the wet clothes, partly from exhaustion. His helpers fetched some foam mattresses, blankets, and dry clothes, and we helped him out of the shoes, gloves, wet clothes, into the dry clothes and under the blankets. That helped. The worst, according to himself, was the pain of frustration inside his head that he had "lost" the attempt. "It's so easy to win, but terribly difficult to lose". The desicion to stop could not have been otherwise, though - a few hours later he would have fallen off of the bike, he felt. The positive spin for me personally at this moment would have to be that I can catch and earlier train and actually be home late afternoon instead of after midnight. That is, if DB will let me change the ticket ... PostscriptI caught the trains I have in many places seen mentions that he gave op "shortly after 3 o'clock". I was right next to him when he called "Ende" and the time was 2:52 ... but it doesn't really matter since he didn't complete. On the German recumbent-forum (see a few links below) there have been many theories why it went wrong. Many mention the helmet (of all the things). Christian Ascheberg usually uses a homebuilt helmet; as far as I can tell it's something like 10mm foam covered with fibreglass. That's not acceptable for record attempts; the rules require the use of an approved helmet, and so he switched. The new helmet was a slightly different shape than the usual, so he couldn't take refreshments the way he was used to - I just haven't been able to find out what "couldn't take refreshments" actually means, because he had at least a CamelBak of water + a couple of bottles with sugary liquid on board. He nowhere mentions lack of nutrition as a problem. What he does mention is circulation problems, shortness of breath, and dizziness. Along with the information that he only drank about 1 liter during the first 5 hours, and only little after that, some are hinting at dehydration as a main source of problems. The hall was, despite him being cold, a lot warmer than the last many months of training and that could have confused his body? In the forum Christian Ascheberg denies dehydration as a cause, stating that he usually drinks very little while cycling, and never has problems with that. He also says that he didn't drink less in Berlin than he did in Schötz. Whatever the reason(s) were he hasn't completely abandoned hope. He will give it a little time and complete som long brevets to assess whether the circulation problems are cronic or just happened this once. After that maybe a new record attempt, but not until after the summer, as far as I can see. Thanks to ...
Links to other accounts from the attempt
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But they also say that he'll continue anyway and see how far he gets. Such spirit! Of course it will also give him experience for next time, if he wants to.
