Video: Highlights of Matthias Brändle's Hour Record ride

Last Thursday, IAM Cycling's Matthias Brändle added his name to one of cycling's most prestigious honour roles when he set a new Hour Record of 52.852km. Here's a video of the edited highlights in case you missed it.

I'm probably the world's worst spectator of sport. I've never watched a whole stage of the Tour de France and the only times I've watched all of even a track race it's been because I was there, notebook in hand, reporting it.

But I watched all of Jens Voigt's and Matthias Brändle's Hour Record rides. I sat enthralled as each rider toiled round the velodrome, initially smooth and composed, then showing the ragged signs of fatigue as the effort took its toll, before the final triumphant laps as they realised the record and a place in history was in the bag.

They say that about 35 minutes into an Hour Record you realise the sheer enormity of the task you've set yourself. The sustained power and immobility makes your neck, shoulders and back scream. Some riders take the risk of sitting up, briefly abandoning the vital aerodynamic tuck to obtain respite from the pain.

All the while I'm watching the distance inexorably creep up, the average speed rise in first half hour, then fluctuate and gradually decline over the second. Has he given himself a big enough margin in that first, fresh 30 minute dash? Can he keep his speed up to target pace? The metronomic rhythm of a rider of the velodrome is the most soothing edge-of-set spectacle.

In this video, Brändle says afterwards: "It's just sixty minutes of pain but after you will stand on the list, you write a little bit of history of cycling."

Superlative achievements though they were, neither Voigt's and Brändle's records represent the limit of human potential. Neither has much experience on the track, and while Brändle is the Austrian time trial champion, he finished 35th in the time trial at the world road championships, 3 minutes and 39.69 seconds behind winner Bradley Wiggins.

It's no surprise, that IAM Cycling owner Michel Thétaz thinks Wiggins will beat Brändle's record.

“Wiggins will beat it, no problem, but Brändle’s name will be there for ever in the hour books,” Thétaz told Cycling Weekly

Wiggins is reported to be planning an attack on the record next summer, with the venue tipped as Majorca's Palma Arena.

If Wiggins can achieve a similar gap over Brändle in the Hour as he did in the world's time trial, he could push the record out past the 55 or even 56km mark. Might he even surpass Chris Boardman's 1996 56.375km record, set before the UCI forced riders to use 1972-style equipment?