Ryan Collins was told in his early twenties that he would never ride a bike again. He has since broken 12 Superbike world records, eight of which he set on the track late last year.
In September, the 30-year-old set the six-hour benchmark at the outdoor velodrome, covering 259 kilometers (161 miles) and breaking the 100km, 200km and 100-mile records in the process. He then repeated the same four-wheel race in mid-December, this time at an indoor velodrome, completing 1,108 laps in six hours and riding approximately 277 kilometers (171 miles).
Collins’ achievement comes just a few years after he was hit head-on by a car driver while training. At the time, he had been identified as an Olympic hopeful for the U.S. Track and Field team and was scheduled to fly to the U.S. next week to join the team.
“I was scraped off the road,” he said Cycling Weekly. “I had multiple fractures throughout my body and torn ligaments. I needed reconstructive surgery to get me back to my original shape.
“After the surgery was done, the doctor came out and said, ‘You’ll never ride a bike again.'” I was heartbroken. But when someone tells you you’ll never do something, you think, “Who are you to tell me this?” Just look at me. “
Ryan Collins’ 12 World Records
2024
Six-hour velodrome (170.7 miles)
100-mile indoor velodrome (03:31:42)
200 km indoor velodrome(04:22:49)
100 km indoor velodrome(02:10:09)
Six-Hour Velodrome (161.08 miles)
100 Mile Outdoor Speedway (03:43:11)
200 km outdoor velodrome(04:39:24)
100 km outdoor velodrome(02:19:24)
2020
Six-hour outdoor road trip (154.32 miles)
200 kilometers of outdoor road (04:48:59)
100 kilometers of outdoor road(02:23:35)
Maryland Crossing Record (North-South: 05:30)
In the weeks and months that followed, Collins slowly regained the strength to hold the handlebars, brake and shift. He subsequently signed up for the 12 Hour Superbike race in Florida, which was scheduled to take place less than a year after the accident. “I entered the competition and was very successful,” he said. “So I came back the next year, I won, broke the course record and started pursuing bigger events.”
His first world record came in 2020, two years after the collision, when he set new benchmarks for six-hour outdoor distance, fastest outdoor 200km and 100km, and the time it took to cross Maryland. Last January, he set his sights on another eight projects, this time on the track.
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“The six-hour event was all a promise I made to my friends. We were talking about how cool it would be to break the six-hour world record for indoor velodrome and outdoor velodrome and then have the goal of getting the world championship in the same year thing,” he said.
“Unfortunately, those friends were struggling with depression and decided to end their battle. So this year I wanted to honor them and really follow through on the promise I made to them.”
While Collins said six hours “isn’t too long – it’s a long training session,” he admitted it was “very difficult” to maintain a comfortable position during that time. Through training, he would wake up at 4 a.m. and ride a turbo trainer, usually in a hotel room, for two to three hours before traveling to New Jersey to work as a marketing executive.
“The biggest success comes from isolating on the indoor trainer and just sitting there because there’s nowhere else to go,” he said. “I just sit there, there’s no fan, it’s hot, I’m tired, I’m bored, I stare at the wall, and occasionally I can play music unless someone complains about the noise.”
However, he said, “You can be as comfortable as you want, but as aerodynamic as a brick, so the next step is testing.”
Without access to a wind tunnel, Collins conducted most of his testing on the track and relied on the knowledge of his equipment partners. He wears top-of-the-line Rule 28 gear, got a cockpit from aerospace specialists Wattshop, and rides Factor’s new Olympic track bike, the Hanzo, which was launched early last year for $59,990 (£47,217).
His first speedway record attempt, at an outdoor track in San Diego in September, was described as a “trial and error” for his subsequent indoor bid.
“Before that, I had never ridden for six hours at a velodrome, and to be honest, about three weeks before the race, I wasn’t even sure I could do it. The longest I’d ever been at a velodrome was only three. hours,” Collins said.
“Six hours on a bike is different than six hours on a fixed-gear bike. The fatigue that’s created in your body and your legs is something I haven’t experienced. It’s an unknown.”
Two hundred and fifty-nine kilometers later, Collins set four new records. He then traveled to the desert of Borrego Springs, California, where he won the Six Hour Superbike World Championship and set a new track record.
(Image credit: Ryan Collins)
In December, he also set a 6-hour indoor velodrome record in California. The track in Carson, a suburb of Los Angeles, is the only Olympic-distance track in the United States and is more than 2,500 miles from Collins’ home on the East Coast in Washington, D.C.
Now confident in his ability to ride the track for six hours, he set to work and soon found himself in a “flow state.”
“That’s how you know it’s going to be a good game or a good training session,” he explained. “I won’t be in a daze, but I can think about anything and time goes by very quickly.
“I have timed notifications on my Garmin, so it just beeps. I know every 30 minutes I want to take a gel, so it breaks up the monotony. I have a dozen gels in my leotard, I’ll pull one out, take it, and throw it away.”
Collins averaged nearly 29 mph (46 km/h) during this period. He once again set four new world records and posed on the lap board, completing more than 1,100 laps.
“I did it,” he later wrote proudly on Instagram. The message was a nod to his supporters, to himself for achieving his goal, and perhaps to the doctors who told him he would never ride a bike again.
“I overcame the odds,” he says now, looking back. “This shows [what you can do] If you focus and put everything into recovery. I did everything I could to do it safely and correctly, and here we are. “
As it turns out, that car accident in his early twenties was just the beginning of his journey.
