Austrian Mathias Brandle of IAM Cycling has set a new Hour Record when he covered 51.580km during an hour on the velodrome in Aigle, thus improving the mark of 51.115km set by Jens Voigt on September 18. It is the second improvement of the record (which was first established in 1893 by Tour de France founder Henri Desgrange who covered 35.235km) since the UCI changed the rules earlier this year to allow more advanced equipment for the attempts.

On the short 200m track in Aigle, Matthias Brändle went faster than Voigt right from the gun and was five seconds ahead of the German at the 4km mark. He gradually increased his advantage over Voigt in the first half and had an average of 51.962 km / h in the first 10 minutes. At this point, he was 14 seconds ahead of the Trek rider and after 12km of racing, he had increased his advantage to 21 seconds, holding an average speed of more than 52kph.

Brändle had started with lots of motivation which was clear in the first part of the test. After half an hour of racing, he had set a speed of 52.138kph and had covered a little more than 26km. Voigt had used 50 seconds more to get to that point.

After 40 minites, Brändle was holding 52.089kph. At this point, he consistently had lap tmes of 14 seconds which was a couple of tenths better than planned. Voigt was now a little more than a minute behind.

The effort started to show and the Austrian reached kilometer 40 after 46 minutes of racing. Brändle was now losing speed and his average after 50 minutes had dropped to 51.940kph. He still needed to maintain his pace for 10 mnutes.

Brändle faded a bit n the end but kept his advantage. In the end, he beat the record convicingly.

Yesterday Brändle had revealed how he had got the idea to try to break the record.

"The idea was in my mind for some time. My manager Tony Rominger did it in his career too. This year the UCI changed the rules. I did not pay much attention. When Jens (Voigt) set the record, I said, ok, maybe I can also do it."

From there he began the physical and material preparation. 

"Together with the team I started to do test before the Tour of Lombardy, and then decided it was a good opportunity and went for it," he said. 

Obviously, Scott was also involved.

"Scott has also worked extensively on this project since June. They had to select the model, make tests and choose the most appropriate bike. Then we made some modifications together to maximize all my power."

24-year-old Matthias Brandle is the current Austrian trial champion, a title he also won in different categories in 2013, 2009 and 2004.