Never too late: meet the 53-year-old cyclist who broke the Scottish Hour record

Update: Andy Bruce broke the Scottish hour record on Sunday 17 March, setting a new record of 47.523km.

This Sunday, 17 March, a 53-year-old amateur cyclist from Dunfermline, Scotland, will attempt to break the Scottish hour record that has stood for 28 years. Andrew Bruce, who plans to beat the 46.65km record is not a lifelong cycling fanatic or a retired professional. He is an enthusiastic amateur who bought his first road bike through the Cycle to Work scheme a little over a decade ago, and got swept up in the road cycling fever of the early 2010s.

In the past fourteen years, Bruce has taken his fitness from ground zero to become one of the most successful age-group track riders in the world, even claiming a Masters track cycling World Championship title in 2019.

His inspiring journey demonstrates that it is never too late to begin building your fitness. Even if your peak years have passed you by, you can still reach the best form of your life. More broadly, Bruce’s late entry to cycling is a much-needed reminder that, even if the best time to start working towards your goals was yesterday, the next best time is right now.

Getting into cycling

“I was always active and healthy as a kid, doing school sports,” Bruce told GCN.

“I did cycling, but not competitively, just for mucking about as kids do. But then ever since university and work, I went out to pubs and clubs, as you do, drinking. I even smoked for 10 years, shock horror!

“Then my dad says, ‘maybe you should get more active.’ So, back in around 2010, my company started doing the Cycle to Work scheme. I thought, ‘Well, might as well get a bike — save a little bit of tax.’ So I did.”

Bruce bought himself an entry-level Orbea road bike with an aluminium frame, costing less than a thousand pounds.

“It was my first road bike, or as I was still calling it a ‘racer’ back then — that gives you an idea of how long ago it was since I'd been involved in cycling!”

Initially, Bruce’s new bike was purely a way to get to and from work. Simply by commuting on his new bike, his fitness came on leaps and bounds.

“In the space of a year, I dropped nine kilos. I didn't do anything other than pedal the bike to the office and back.”

By 2012, Bruce had joined his local cycling club and started tagging along to local time trials and road races. In his first race, his goal was simple: “Beat the guy that comes last. And I did. Not by much, but I did.”

However, when a friend persuaded Bruce to give track cycling a go, he discovered he had a natural gift for racing on the boards. In his first event, the Individual Pursuit at the Scottish track championships, he finished second in the 40+ age category.

It inspired him to focus on track racing, especially the Individual Pursuit. In 2019, he entered the Masters Track World Championships. Much to his own amazement, he won silver in his favourite discipline, the Individual Pursuit, and clinched a surprise victory in the bunch event, the points race.

“When it came to the points race, I just decided I'll get through the qualifier, I'll race the points race as I want to race, I'll not be reactive: if folks do stuff, I don't care, I'm just going to do what I want to do. And so, long story short, I went out, did that, had a great time, and won the damn race! It was bizarre. It was completely unplanned, unintended, but I'm not going to say no.”

The record attempt

For his record attempt on Sunday, Bruce is not attempting to beat the age-group record or the Masters record. He’s set his sights on the overall Scottish record.

“All the folks that have done it to this point have been kind of mid twenties, early thirties type age. I'm 53," he said.

“At the same time, I'm under absolutely no illusion. There are plenty of riders in Scotland that are more than capable of smashing that record and putting it well beyond my ability. But I’ll get in there first.”

The current record was set in 1996 by Jim Gladwell, who had the disadvantage of setting the record on an outdoor velodrome, but the advantage of setting the record in a ‘superman’ position, with his arms right out in front of him. Now, Scotland has an indoor velodrome — the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow — and whilst the ‘superman’ position has been banned, Bruce’s bike and equipment are significantly more aerodynamic than the equipment from the 1990s.

To break the existing record of 46.65km, Bruce has a full hour on the track to cover the greatest possible distance. He set his sights on the record after someone mentioned in a Scottish Cycling Facebook group that it had stood unbroken for almost 28 years.

“That set the wheels in motion. A quick calculation worked out that the record of 46.65km is an average of 19.2 second laps. Can I do that? And I was sitting there thinking, ‘I think I probably can,’" he said.

“So I went off to the track, full aero gear, everything that I would normally wear for competition, and did an initial test. It was only 10 minutes, aiming for about 18.7 second laps.

“I had to look at my data and see what power I was needing to manage that lap time, and it was well below my threshold. So that's when it became, ‘Hey, yeah, this is achievable; this isn't a pipe dream.’”

With the help of coach Martin Lonie, Bruce is now ready to make his mark on Scottish cycling history.

“It's on: the velodrome is booked; I've officially told folks I'm doing this; there's no backing out now.”

No regrets for what might have been

There’s no denying that Bruce has a natural gift for cycling. He suspects that it comes down to some physiological trait.

“Folks keep saying that there is a physiological aspect, you know, whether you've inherited a set of lungs and heart and muscles that are conducive to being a good cyclist. I don't know.”

With that in mind, it would be easy to get down in the dumps over ‘what might have been’, had Bruce made the most of his talent when he was in his prime. Indeed, Bruce admits that he finds himself wondering ‘what if’, but ultimately, he’s content with the decisions he’s made.

“Absolutely I look back and think, ‘What could it have been like if I'd got into cycling as a teenager?’, but who knows. You've got to look at the pluses and minuses of it: I've got a decent career that pays a good salary. Would that have happened if I'd gone into cycling at a younger age? I suspect not.

“My daughter, who's 15, does occasionally ask, ‘Could you have been a professional cyclist?’ The short answer is: I don't know.

“Would I have wanted to have been a professional cyclist, looking back at the period of time that would have happened, the nineties? I'm not sure, just because of the darker side of cycling, if you like.

“So I'm content to pipe dream about what might've been, but I’m not really regretting it too much that it never happened.”

Focussing on the here and now

Rather than stewing on missed opportunities, Bruce is far more interested in seizing the opportunities open to him here and now.

“You've got to look at what you can do today and what you're going to do tomorrow more than what you could have done in the past,” he said.

Having gone from a sedentary lifestyle to world-beating fitness in his middle-age, Bruce believes we should spend less time wishing we’d acted sooner, and more time embracing the present.

“The best time to start is always now. There's that saying that the best time to plant the trees is now, not next week, or next year, or whenever. Because the investment that you make as early as you can into your personal fitness and health pays dividends. It’s like money in the bank.

“It doesn't matter that you've lost time, if you like, and you're suddenly 50 and you think, ‘Oh, I need to do something’, as long as you do something."

For Bruce, this pursuit of the hour record is a culmination of the direction his life pivoted to once he picked up the bike. That development is something Bruce argues is available to everyone, regardless of their baseline level of talent.

“You can sit there and just let life happen, and that can be a comfortable way to spend your time; it's easy. Or, you can look to see how you can improve your life. And it's not always easy. You know, some of the training that I'm doing is pretty horrible.

“But it's about making those changes in your life that are positive, and then reaping the benefits from that.”

© Andy Bruce

Andy Bruce celebrates taking the new Scottish hour record: 47.523km

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