A certain mystique built up over the 75 years of the Godwin record. But The Year has now been demystified, and broken down into its constituent parts. The technical, physiological, psychological and validatory components have all been subject to minute inspection.
There's bound to be a desire for a hero to come along and put the mystique back into the record, probably through some sort of 'purity'. A similar process has been at work in 'The Hour'. Moser put the cat among the pigeons there, by gaining the record at altitude with an aerodynamic bike. Boardman's 'Superman' record is an outlier, and a record with footnotes is a bit naff.
I don't think there will ever be an unequivocal answer to the 'purity problem'. A closed circuit or velodrome record makes a prisoner of the candidate, and the public seem to like at least the illusion of the 'Freedom of the Open Road'. That romantic idea of 'liberty' has been relentlessly sucked out of Bruce's attempt by critics of his validation strategy. However, there was a paradox in the way that Bruce needed shackle himself to the Guinness idea, and to Strava to gain profile.
I still idealise a round-the world-trip that would transform my understanding in some way, a redemptive journey, and I think there are a lot of people who project that sort of notion onto the Year riders. I'm old enough to realise that I can't just 'bivvy' my way around the world, but there are enough folk out there with the 'perfect trip', only in their heads, who like to find fault, and to express themselves over bile-flecked keyboards.
