Cyclist vs runner: Who's the better athlete?
We challenged an elite club runner to take on Alex Paton, both on and off the bike
James Howell-Jones
Junior Writer
Who is a better athlete, a cyclist or a runner? Both are known for their incredible aerobic fitness, amazing endurance, and twig-like physique, but who will be better when they have to do the other sport?
To find out, we found a runner and challenged him to a race. Alex Carter is an elite-level club racer with a personal best in the half marathon of just 67 minutes. He has logged over 1,000 runs on Strava, but only three bike rides. Alex was going to represent runners to show us just how fast a runner can ride a bike – provided he could work out how to change gears and ride around corners.
Defending the honour of cyclists, we put forward an Alex of our own. GCN’s Alex Paton is an ex-professional cyclist who has represented Great Britain in cyclocross and won the sprinter’s jersey at the Tour of Britain. This year, he’s been for just three runs, all of which were, according to Alex, “rubbish”.
We wanted to know which sport produced the best athletes, so we challenged Alex and Alex to swap sports and compare times. Can a runner go from pounding the pavement to pushing the pedals, and vice versa? Watch the video to find out.
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