PB chasing is the big issue... Nowhere else in the world does anyone understand this.
Actually that would make cycling the unusual sport. Running, for example, appears to understand the idea of personal bests perfectly well, and world records, in any sport, are just the best personal best ever. They are in no way incompatible with trying to beat the current field.
For those of us who will never trouble the top half of the results sheet in any serious event, personal bests are a really good thing to go for. And everyone chasing a PB does it by trying to get a go on the fastest course/track/ski slope/whatever.
But I still haven't ridden a DC course in decades
It has become an obsession for the absolute number… the under 50 for a 25… there is still a list of all the sub 50 rides, which now comprises many hundreds!
Obviously this leads to an unsustainable culture of fast courses, fast days and expensive marginal gains.
We need to discriminate between this obsession for the number, and Joe average trying to beat their PB over their local course, often by means of training harder and improving their position on the bike…
But ultimately, I think even at the bottom of the field, it should be about the pecking order… I don’t care to beat my PB if everybody else does…but I do care if I can post a better time than my direct competitors… it’s a race.
Running has an historic relationship with numbers… there are records of all sorts, the only record that matters in cycling is the Hour…
The 10 and 25 records in this country are a bit of a joke… gained on fast days on fast courses, often not reproducible conditions.
When I get passed by three lorries in a row on our local DC course, even I briefly exceed 30 mph… I just need a bigger number of lorries to keep going