Thanks @finnspin for marketing me.
@GizmoDuck I think it is near impossible to break my record without a Schlumpf as well. But with a Schlumpf it should be possible to go beyond the 550km mark, or even 600km. You definitely should go for the standard world record, when it is introduced. It is just not possible to compare the efforts with and without a Schlumpf.
If you’re interested in how my attempt went, here is a quick summary.
We started at Friday evening at 18:00. I did the attempt together with Lena Freimuth who broke the female record. To make sure, drafting isn’t possible, she rode in lane 1 and I rode in lane 5. Between us was a barrier (lane 3 & 4), also to make sure I couldn’t get into a shorter lane.
We started in the evening, so we didn’t have to ride through the night at the end of the attempt. We thought that it is better to be well rested during the night.
I started with a speed of 27 km/h but it soon dropped down to 23 to 24 km/h during the night. My first short break was after only two hours. I had to go to the toilet very quick. Maybe that’s because I ate too much prior the race. The next toilet break was in the morning. I managed to keep the speed during the night quite consistent and increased it slightly in the morning again. During the night I had a short period of time, where I had to fight to stay awake. But luckily it didn’t last long. I started to talk motivated to myself, which helped to wake me up and to stay consistent.
Closer to the end I took short breaks every hour. But I tried to keep them much shorter than 5 min. I think it is even possible with way less breaks, because they don’t help much. They don’t help to regain a lot of strength. But it’s mentally extremely hard to continue riding without the knowledge of a short break in one hour.
During the race I was supported ba my girlfriend Jette and her parents. They mixed my energy drinks and gave me food regularly. I think I fueled pretty well during the race. In total I drank about ten liter of my sport drink. I ate a pretzel, a focaccia and, closer to the end, lots of gels and bars. I think during such an effort it is almost impossible to eat too much, so I tried to eat as much as possible.
I broke the record from Ken at 14:30. So I had 3:30 h to break the 500km barrier, which was my goal. At that point it was already clear, that I would be able to do so, if I continue at the same speed and with the same very short breaks every hour. And so I did and finished with a total of 1225 laps, which is a distance of 526,8km.
Although I used cycling shorts and a cream to prevent saddle soreness, my butt started hurting 16 hours into the race. It didn’t reach a point where it wasn’t endurable any more though.
