Video of that wooden bike hour record

victor horta school wooden bicycle class

I found TV Brussel video of Eddy Planckaert’s hour record on a wooden bicycle. English subtitles are available by clicking the Closed Caption control.



57 year old retired Belgian pro Eddy Planckaert rode nearly 12 kilometers on the Rochefort, Belgium velodrome. Planckaert took 30 laps around the track on the 30 kg bike to total 11932.94 meters. The bike was built by shop class students at Victor Horta School, a vocational school in Evere, Belgium.

Because the track he used is not UCI sanctioned, Planckaert’s effort was for funsies and will not be entered in any official books. “It may well be frivolous,” said the former champ, “but it’s still good to have ‘world record’ in your trophy case.”

Planckaert’s palmares include winning the green jersey in the 1988 Tour de France, and winning the Tour of Flanders that year. The closest finish in the history of Paris-Roubaix happened when Planckaert beat Canadian Steve Bauer by less than a centimeter in 1990. Planckaert performed his wooden hour record feat in the Panasonic/Sportlife jersey he wore for Paris-Roubaix.

The UCI-sanctioned world record of 54.526 km is currently held by British track star Bradley Wiggins.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.