Red Bull Timelaps: 500+ riders take on 25-hour race around Windsor Great Park

The weekend saw more than 500 cyclists compete in the first edition of the Red Bull Timelaps at Windsor Great Park in Berkshire, billed as the world’s longest one-day bike race.

By design rather than coincidence, the event started at noon on Saturday on a 6.6-kilometre circuit and, with the clocks going back overnight, spanned 25 hours before it finished at midday on Sunday.

Competing in teams of four, with only one rider per team on the course at the time, the idea was to complete as many laps as possible – with a ‘Power Hour’ on a shortened section at the time the clocks stopped counting double.

The event was won by Northamptonshire-based Wellingborough Cycles Team, which completed 138 laps.

Team leader Jack Patmore said: “We are ecstatic. We ended up entering as a bit of fun at the end of our season, so it's really great that we ended up winning the whole event.

“We didn't really have a game plan apart from just letting one of the guys hit it really hard! We will definitely be back next year to defend our title!”

The women’s category was won by Team 5th Floor, with one of its riders, Sophie Edmondson: , saying: “There were some highs and some lows. The middle of the night was pretty hard but it was really fun!

“In the beginning, our tactics were short stints at the beginning, then after lap four, we realised we needed to extend this.

“For the Power Hour we did six lap stints, in the night we did eight and then we did three each for the last ones.”

She added: “There are a lot of female teams here. It’s amazing to see so many women taking part. It’s so cool for the sport.

Here at road.cc, we had two teams running – one comprising staff from the office in Bath, the other made up of four readers of the site who had won their places through a competition we ran.

One of the members of the road.cc office team was site co-founder, Dave Atkinson, who said: “It was great to be there for the inaugural Red Bull Timelaps event, and save for one shower and more wind than was strictly necessary, conditions were fantastic given the time of year.

“The undulating course around Windsor Great Park was both interesting and challenging, and fortunately the pheasants and deer kept their distance.

“Unfortunately, the race had to be re-started after an incident in the first few laps, and even more unfortunately it was one of our team road.cc riders who had to be carted off to hospital with a broken shoulder and collarbone.

“If you’re reading this, Jim, heal up soon and we’ll send you a bunch of kit to replace the stuff they had to cut off you …”

Dave continued: “The standard of riding was pretty high, and we were happy enough with our 83rd overall given that most of our pre-race prep was concerned with buying skeleton outfits. More dressing up next time, please. Maybe a fancy-dress category?

“Overall, the race was really well organised and marshalled, with the ‘Power Hour’ as the clocks went back adding an extra dimension to the racing as those laps counted double.

“It’s definitely one to look out for next year, although if the weather conditions are more typical for the end of October it might be tough dragging yourself out of your sleeping bag at 3am ...”

You can find the full results here.