Mike Hall (cyclist)

Mike Hall
Mike Hall at the Riders Briefing before the 2015 Transcontinental Race in Geraardsbergen, Belgium
Born	(1981-06-04) 4 June 1981[1] Harrogate, United Kingdom[1]
Nationality	British
Occupation	Engineer[2]
Known for	Winner of multiple ultra-distance, self-supported bicycle races and organizer of the Transcontinental Race
Website	normallyaspiratedhuman.com

Mike Hall (born 4 June 1981) is a British cyclist and race organizer who specializes in self-supported ultra-distance races. In 2012, he won the inaugural World Cycle Race. In 2013 and 2016, he won the Tour Divide ultra-endurance mountain bike race across the Rocky Mountains in Canada and the United States. In 2014, he won the inaugural Trans Am Bike Race, a road-based event from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast in the USA. Since 2013, he has been the principal organizer of the Transcontinental Race, an event similar to the TransAm Bicycle Race, but that traverses Europe.

Race Results

Hall started racing mountain bikes as a teenager, but became more serious in 2009 (aged 28) when he started doing 24 hour mountain bike races.^[3] His first ultra-distance self-supported race was the Tour Divide in 2011 - while riding in the top 10, he acquired a knee injury but still finished the race.^[4] He then won a major ultra-distance event in 4 of the next 5 years:

The 91 days and 18 hours for the 2012 World Cycle Race does not include transfer and flight times, which is how Guinness World Records measured it at the time, and this was faster than the current around the world cycling record, but his attempt was never ratified by Guinness. He completed the 2013 Tour Divide in a time faster than the current record but did not qualify for the record due to the route being altered that year to avoid forest fires.^[8] In the 2016 Tour Divide, he beat the record and rode the complete, official route.

Race Organization

Finish party for the 2014 TCR, with Mike Hall on the microphone

In 2013, Mike Hall founded the Transcontinental Race (TCR) and has been the main organizer ever since. The TCR is an annual, self-supported, ultra-distance bicycle race across Europe. The TCR has no set route except that the riders must pass several intermediate checkpoints at iconic locations, which vary every year. It has always started in north-western Europe (the UK or Belgium) and finished at Europe's southeastern border with Asia in Turkey. The distance has varied between 3200 to 4200 km. The race has grown rapidly from having 30 people start the first edition in 2013 to receiving more than 1000 applications for the 350 places available for the fourth edition in 2016.

When Hall was asked about his motivation for setting up the TCR he said "there was a demand growing for both a European based ultra on a similar scale to Race Across America, and also an unsupported alternative to the race".^[3]

Movies

A feature-length documentary, called Inspired to Ride was made about the 2014 TransAm Bicycle Race, which Mike Hall won. In addition to several interviews during the race, the documentary included a section where Hall was interviewed and filmed riding around where he lives in southern Wales, UK.

Fundraising

Hall has helped to raise money for the charity Newborns Vietnam, which is a UK-based charity that aims to "improve access to and quality of newborn care in the poorest rural areas" of Vietnam. Hall asked people to donate to the charity in honor of him doing the 2012 World Cycle Race.^[1] In 2013^[11][12] and 2015^[13] he led a group of cyclists (with Juliana Buhring in 2015) in the Vietnam Challenge Ride organized by Cycle A Difference that also raised money for Newborns Vietnam.

References