Hell on wheels: what it’s like to ride in the world’s longest indoor spin class
Thirty hours, non-stop, on a spin bike? It’s the hardest and probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever attempted...
Some are born to greatness, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. And then there are idiots like me, roped into a quest for glory at the eleventh hour, accidental tourists on the greatness train.
My cycling coach dropped it into conversation casually, dangling the Faustian bargain before me. “If you can keep your legs spinning for 30 hours,” said James “Chops” Lamb, “you can help us reclaim the Guinness World Record for the longest indoor spin class.”
Looking back, he caught me at my weakest moment. A couple of days before I had completed a 400km bike ride in regional NSW. The legs were on the way to recovery and the pain in my rear had abated, yet I was still high on the heady fumes that linger in the aftermath of endurance events, ego swollen from a Strava feed full of kudos. “You can do it,” the coach importuned. “How often do you get a chance to put your name on a world record?”
I had heard distant talk of this attempt swirling around cycling circles in the preceding months, and dismissed it as the mutterings of madmen. Riding long distances outdoors can be ordeal enough for the most committed masochist, but when you ride outdoors you are at least seated on a machine that moves and flexes beneath you. There are traffic lights and stop signs, hills and descents that allow shifts of position, and plentiful opportunities to separate the posterior from the saddle, easing the creeping, relentless and cascading pain that accretes as one’s journey unfolds.
I was familiar with the torture device of the indoor trainer, where the bike is held vice-like in the gizmo’s grip, removing much of the flex and give. But most of my indoor sessions were limited to an hour, perhaps 90 minutes. My longest ride indoors had been a 200km effort on a rainy afternoon, which began as a whim and ended in chaffed, bum-numbing discomfort after some seven hours in the saddle. The prospect of having to do that more than four times over was unimaginable. But I didn’t even think about it before I found myself in a kind of out-of-body experience, watching my lips flap as I cheerfully told the coach that I was in.
“The path to paradise begins in hell.” – Dante’s Inferno
This was the Wednesday before the Saturday of the record attempt, masterminded by Kevin Moultrie, founder and head of the Fab to be Fit Foundation (fabtobefit.org.au). Moultrie is a former corporate high-flyer whose weight ballooned until in 2009, at 47 years old, he tipped the scales at 154kg and was diagnosed as morbidly obese. He realised he had to make a change, shed 50kg in three years, then shifted his focus to helping to prevent obesity in underprivileged kids.
“We raise funds by taking on crazy physical challenges,” Moultrie enthused over the phone. “In 2019, our group set the Guinness World Record for the Longest Static Cycling Class, at 27 hours. From March 2020, we had to stop fundraising events due to Covid, and while we were locked down, a team of riders from Colorado set a new benchmark at 28 hours. Since then, my guys have been pushing to reclaim the title. We’ve been working behind the scenes for the past 12 months, looking at how we could do this in a truly awesome location and setting.” He secured the Prince Henry Centre, perched on a headland at Little Bay, near La Perouse in Sydney’s east, and drummed up new, state-of-the-art Body Bike-Smart spin bikes for the riders.
In the week leading up to the attempt three riders had fallen to Omicron, leaving just 13, including the last-minute addition of me. A quorum of at least 10 has to finish the 30 hours to qualify for the record, meaning the margin for error is small. While the other riders have been preparing for the ordeal for months, I would have to rely on my fitness from outdoor cycling and sheer grit. In the previous year, I had completed rides of 300km, 400km, 600km and 1200km as part of Audax, the global endurance cycling movement. My longest continuous stint in the saddle was about 24 hours, and that had included proper breaks for meals and generous time off the bike every 50-70km.
The world record attempt would be a different beast altogether. The rules were strict, and the entire event would be filmed from several angles and later scrutinised by officials from Guinness (offering the chance of another record attempt: the world’s most boring 30 hours short of watching paint dry). We would have to complete a continuous 30-hour spin class, following an instructor (Lamb), with a five-minute break permitted once per hour, or a 10-minute break after two continuous hours.
My knowledge of spin classes was scant and I can’t say I was much more knowledgeable about Guinness World Records, although I knew the ones that attracted the most attention were usually the silliest (fastest large burrito eaten: 44.20 seconds; most Rubik’s cubes solved underwater: six; most Simpsons tattoos: 203; most dogs in a conga line: eight). Clearly, we would be ascending to the realm of peak human performance. And should we achieve the record, we’d be joining 58,000 other current Guinness World Record holders whose feats are recorded in 147 million books.
THE FIRST 10 HOURS
“Through me you go into a city of weeping; through me you go into eternal pain; through me you go amongst the lost people.” – Dante’s Inferno
Saturday morning dawns overcast and muggy, with a forecast maximum of over 30 degrees. My heart sinks when I realise the room is not airconditioned. We begin in matching Fab to be Fit team kit, but as instructed we have 3-4 changes of gear each, along with towels, toiletries, chamois cream and two water bottles. On the advice of the team nutritionist we’ve been carbing up. At the initial weigh-in, I realise I’ve put on a couple of kilograms in as many days. Nutrition will be key over the next 30 hours, as the gastrointestinal tract goes into revolt at the forced feeding and the body begins to break down. We will each need to take on between 15,000 and 18,000 calories to fuel the ordeal. The nutritionist, medics and volunteers will be on hand for the duration, bringing us whatever we can consume while riding, offering advice and tending to aches and niggles. Motivational notes are attached to our water bottles.
Ten minutes before 10am, we circle up and link arms. Lamb fixes us with a steely gaze. “We ride as a team. We ride for each other. We finish together. This might be the hardest thing you’ve ever done. But you can do it. Can I get a ‘hell yeah?’” With a whoop and a holler and the thumping pulse of high-energy music that will be our constant companion for the next 30 hours, we begin.
The monotonies soon become apparent. There are four basic variations: easy spinning, a harder high-cadence effort (“Imagine riding down a long flat road,” shouts Lamb), a low-cadence, high-resistance seated climb, and the standing climb. The pedals have a kind of inertia, a bit like riding a fixie, and the resistance is increased or reduced by turning a knob on the bike. Three hours in, the adrenalin is wearing off, the butt is beginning to ache, and the sheer scope of what we’ve let ourselves in for settles over the room like an ominous cloud.
THE SECOND 10 HOURS
“In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost.” – Dante’s Inferno
It’s 8pm and we cheer the milestone of a third of the ride being done. We’ve already ridden the equivalent of 250km or more. Stretching before us like an eternity are another two 10-hour stints, and the first has been long, hot and butt-clenchingly hard. I’m seated at the front left of the group, which means I’m barely getting any wind from the large fan aimed at my side of the room. Eventually I can’t take it anymore and ask for it to be moved. More breeze, along with dropping temperatures as the sun goes down, affords sweet relief. For most of the afternoon, on the big screen in front of us, we have watched Lamb’s avatar churn down lonely roads in the desert world of Zwift, the online cycling app. So far I’ve consumed at least 10 energy gels, a chicken wrap, a bowl of pasta, umpteen bananas, bags of lollies, and muesli bars, but nausea is settling in and I know that taking on sustenance is only going to get harder.
Darkness arrives and disco lights are fired up. Zwift is replaced by some trippy visuals featuring a strangely hypnotic silver twerking android. Like robots we follow our leader’s commands, in and out of the saddle, ceaselessly spinning. Around midnight, another milestone, a second wind kicks in and I suddenly feel invincible. I’ve got this, I think, my legs pumping like pistons. The next four hours pass in a blur of endorphins. Eating is another matter, and I can scarcely face anything solid. I’m saved by packs of vinegar baked potatoes, which I can get down with copious gulps of sports drink, and jelly snakes.
THE FINAL 10 HOURS
“All hope abandon ye who enter here.” – Dante’s Inferno
Whoever said things are darkest before the dawn had never done a 30-hour spin class. Sunrise would merely herald the beginning of the real torment, the descent into the pain cave, a gaze into an abyss straight out of Nietzsche’s nightmares, and a thorough spelunking of the human condition.
With eight hours to go, I’m beset by serious doubts. Failure seems a real possibility. My body is drained of energy, wasted during the rave party of my overnight renaissance. Each turn of the pedals demands a fresh, wrenching commitment, and to say my butt is sore would be a Guinness record for understatement. Each standing climb is sweet relief, tinged with the knowledge that it will also bring the exquisite agony of sitting down again on a rear end that surely has come to resemble chopped liver.
I gaze across at my companions in the front row. Dawn Cutler, a close pal and Emergency Physician at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, has her gaze fixed on the middle distance and barely seems to have broken a sweat. Beyond her, cycling journalist and endurance legend Rupert Guinness, who later this year will contest the fabled Race Across America, appears to be wringing double the watts out of his bike compared to my measly and diminishing efforts.
Morning has at least brought some variations to the playlist. Interspersed with the persistent thump of techno and the occasional bit of dubstep are some motivational rock numbers and even the odd ballad. Beyoncé’s Halo comes on at my weakest moment, and I suddenly dissolve in a flood of tears.
Recalling the advice of Kevin “Kevlar” Wynne-Smith, a 49-year-old electrician and endurance mountain biker, the key is to keep breaking it down into chunks. I focus on nothing beyond the next hour. My gut is in full revolt; each five-minute break allows just enough time to sprint for the toilets, slather on more chamois cream and clip back into my pedals. The heat builds steadily; my puddle of sweat returns, requiring regular visits by a mop-wielding volunteer. Some friends drop in mid-morning for a visit, bearing pep talks and energy drinks.
This lifts my spirits, although by this point conversation has become all but impossible.
And then suddenly we are passing the existing record of 28 hours to resounding cheers and a fresh dump of adrenalin. Now there is no doubt we will get there. The final two hours pass relatively quickly as we lose ourselves in reveries of glory and dream of a world beyond the spinning pedals. There is a countdown, more cheers, and we collapse on rubbery legs from our torture machines. Somehow we have made it. We’ve set a new Guinness World Record of 30 hours. We clutch at each other, high-fives and hugs, but we are all still lost in our private hells, beset by brain fog. Nothing seems quite real.
It’s the hardest and probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever attempted, and it will gradually sink in over the next couple of sleep-disturbed and emotional days. How long will our record stand? Who knows? One thing is certain. I am never, ever doing this again.