Pedaling hard under water and with diving equipment - ten athletes from Hesse want to set a world record with this. The project started on Sunday in the freshly renovated indoor pool in Bruchköbel in the Main-Kinzig district. Together, the athletes want to create the "longest 24-hour distance of a team of 10 in underwater cycling" and thus outdo the Austrian company sports association from Vienna as the current record holder.

The motto of the world record attempt was "We're bringing the record back to Germany," explained the initiators, including the extreme sportsman Dirk Leonhardt from Bruchköbel, who repeatedly made a name for himself with world record projects - such as an "ice triathlon" and the "longest non-stop - Stairway in a team".

The Austrians only broke the record at the beginning of April this year with a distance of 123.15 kilometers that Hesse had previously held: The Hessian Land Tauchclub (HLTC) from Nidderau, not far from Bruchköbel, had it in the same discipline in 2019 at a distance of Brought 109.39 kilometers. Members of the Nidderauer Club are also at the start in Bruchköbel this time.

The route, which is only theoretically covered because the underwater bicycle does not move forward, does not sound very long for a period of 24 hours at first glance - but that is due to the measuring method, explained Leonhardt: The route is only calculated from the data the circumference of the crank on the wheel multiplied by the number of revolutions. On normal bicycles, on the other hand, the crank movement is transmitted to a significantly larger wheel via the chain.

The number of revolutions is determined with a specially developed device. An integrated time measurement also ensures that the lap measurement stops after exactly 24 hours.

In order to break the record, the athletes have to complete around 114,000 revolutions of the pedals on the underwater bicycle in 24 hours, which is around 80 revolutions per minute. Because the air in the compressed air bottles only lasts for a limited time, the athletes take turns on the underwater bike every 15 minutes - everyone will be in action for around two and a half hours, said Leonhardt.

On site, Olafkuchenbecker from the German Record Institute (RID) will monitor the record attempt and, if successful, hand over the official record certificate to the team this Monday (October 3). With the world record attempt, donations are also to be collected for the Bruchköbel association LaLeLu, which works for families with terminally ill or deceased children and offers bereavement support in the event of any loss.