Forget the Tour de France. Here’s a true tour de force.
At an age when most people are, well, not even around anymore, Robert Marchand still rides his bike with panache. In fact, he’s a world beater.
On Friday, the Frenchman, 102-years-young, pedaled his road bike around a velodrome, or indoor cycling track, a distance of 26.9 kilometers (16.7 miles) in one hour, establishing a centenarian record. That Herculean effort beat the previous record of 24.25 kilometers, which he himself owned, reports Le Parisien.
The remarkable achievement was given the thumbs-up by the International Cycling Union, the governing body of world cycling, in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France.
Marchand may not be as fast as the current world record holder for the distance traveled in one hour on a conventional road bike—that honor belongs to the Czech Republic’s Ondřej Sosenka, who traveled 49.7 kilometers (nearly 30.9 miles) in 2005—but how can you not be impressed with this flying Frenchman?
(Hattip to Le Parisien, Time Magazine)
