Mark Elmy of Bungay Cycle School set about breaking the East District Cycling Association Hour Rollers record at Bungay High School Sports Hall.

The old record was 174 laps of a 500-metre clock – the clock hand being operated by cycling on the rollers via a cable between the two. His intended schedule of 15 laps of the clock every five minutes involved cycling at over 50 miles per hour.

But this was no ordinary bicycle. It was a track frame, intended for a fixed wheel, meaning that Elmy was unable to freewheel and had to pedal constantly, and to enable him to reach such high speeds he had a front chainwheel of 100 teeth – almost twice the normal number of teeth.

Being almost 18 inches in diameter and a rear sprocket of only 16 teeth giving a gear of 164” meant that with one turn of the pedals the bike would travel nearly 43 feet or almost 13 metres.

Disaster struck when crash mats were blown up by a breeze and caused him to fall, forcing a restart. His final tally after 60 whole minutes was 181 laps of the 500-metre clock or over 226 laps completed in the hour and a quarter that Elmy was on the rollers – but only 181 laps count.