Congratulations to Matthew Lefthand for breaking 6 recumbent records in the following categories: Male, 18-49, recumbent bike
Matthew broke all 6 of his previous records:
These are all Guinness non-age group records.
| Distance Event Kilometers | Time | Avg Sp (Km) | Avg Sp (Miles) | |
| 100 Km Road | 02:08:00.32 | 46.87 | 29.13 | |
| 200 Km Road | 04:21:39.37 | 45.86 | 28.50 | |
| 300 Km Road | 06:36:38.51 | 45.38 | 28.20 | |
| Distance Event Miles | Time | Avg Sp (Miles) | Avg Sp (Km) | |
| 100 Mile Road | 03:29:25.01 | 28.65 | 46.11 | |
| 200 Mile Road | 07:05:35.00 | 28.20 | 45.38 | |
| Timed Event | Miles | Kilometers | Avg Sp (Miles) | Avg Sp (Km) |
| 6 Hour Road | 169.502 | 272.787 | 28.25 | 45.46 |
Record: Solo, officiated 12-hr recumbent road attempt + 8 embedded records
Rider: Matthew Lefthand
This World Record attempt was planned for continued testing of aerodynamics and dialing in the recumbent fit on the Cruzbike. I traveled to the San Luis Valley on Monday, June 15 to begin altitude adjusting for a planned record attempt on June 23rd. I was not expecting the amount of downtime and rest that was my reality after Unbound XL. As many athletes, I was plagued with an infection that destroyed my stomach and left me feeling as ill as I’ve ever felt. I also got poison oak on my legs and it all forced me to take more days off than planned. I was still taking my antibiotic when I arrived to begin training for the record attempt.
As I was preparing things and making adjustments to the Cruzbike, I saw that the experienced Team Skipper was looking for a replacement for their 4th rider in their Race Across America effort which was to begin on Saturday at noon. They were requesting a rider who was 73+ years old, in order to keep their age category. I didn’t think anything of it at first, other than, “Wow, finding someone 70+ who’s in a place to jump into Race Across America at the last minute, would be a pretty big hail mary!” After having it sent to me by a few people, I started considering it. Crazy enough, if I moved my record attempt up a few days, and traveled immediately after, I could potentially make it work. I called my wife, Bailey, and she got on board with my crazy idea, as she usually does. That meant that she had to pack up my road and TT bikes in our Subaru and drive overnight so she could crew and drive the follow vehicle, earlier than expected.
I had gone to bed early that night and Bailey and her mom arrived around 3:30 AM on June 19. I spent most of the hours leading up to the attempt, preparing my upright bikes for RAAM. It was the oddest record preparation yet. After feeling like most things were ready for both the record attempt and our drive to Oceanside, CA, we headed to bed. We slept for 5-6 hours and got up about 10 PM.
Our WUCA Official, Garrick Bird, arrived in Monte Vista where we were staying about 10:45 PM and we headed to the start line about 11:15 PM. We arrived at the designated southern most end of the route and prepared to begin. We chose to ride overnight as the wind forecast was going to be the most favorable in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, there was more wind than forecasted.
As I prepared to take off, I realized I had forgotten to put my heart rate monitor on, but with multiple layers and a nutrition bladder in the way, I decided it wasn’t worth the time to get it on before starting. Conditions were fine in the beginning and I knew I would need to push for the 100km record. Speeds were near 30 mph to begin. On a 61.1966 mile course, the experience at the southern most end of the track and moving northward was completely different from the reverse. The path southward had strong headwinds which caused me to burn more matches in the beginning than I had planned for.
Not only was the wind stronger than predicted, it was significantly cooler as well. Clouds prevented it from warming up as quickly as we thought. All of these elements led to significantly more effort than was planned. I felt my lower quad overworking and I’m not sure if its due to not having my recumbent fit completely dialed in, a muscle conditioning issue, or something else.
The original plan was to ramp up into this effort, but with the illness barely subsiding and RAAM now on the schedule, I was really concerned about pushing too hard and hurting myself. I was ready to do the whole 12 hours, as this was my plan, but when things started to hurt in a bad way I knew it was time to adjust.
With this in mind, after successfully surpassing the upright records for 100km, 100mi, 200km, 6hr, 300km, and 200mi, I called it early. I was very pleased with these efforts and times, and knew that going further was too much risk.
This is the course I have been planning to use in challenging the 24hr TT record, but there are definitely still elements that make it less than ideal. I’ve become very familiar with this stretch of highway, after this attempt and completing a little less than half of the 7-day effort on this course.
I am feeling slightly disappointed in the power I am able to push on the recumbent compared to the upright. I know a lot of this is just time on this format and I hope that my continued training will help me improve that.
As far as fueling, I was completely liquid Formula 369 Endurance Mix. I had two hydration bladders on board, one in the back race cage and one under my jersey on my chest.