Czech long-distance cyclist Kateřina Rusá covered an incredible 55,555 kilometres on her bike last year - that's around 15,000 kilometres more than the circumference of the earth around the equator. She broke her record from 2023, which was 50,505 annual kilometres. Her record-breaking performance last year means that she spent an average of 6 hours and 39 minutes in the saddle of a bike and covered more than 150 kilometres every day - all while working a full-time job. She often starts her training rides in the early evening and then rides into the night. Kateřina has been on her bike every day without interruption since 19 March 2016 - that's 3238 days in a row as of today.
40,000 to 50,000 kilometres a year on the road bike
Rusá has been combining endurance cycling with her job for fourteen years. She got into cycling after her knees gave her a hard time playing volleyball and she had to look for another sport. Her exceptional performance - she cycles between 40,000 and 50,000 kilometres a year - has already earned her many followers on the social sports network Strava: over 5,000 fans follow her activities under the name "Kat Secteur" (https://www.strava.com/athletes/3922065). If you take a look at her profile, you will discover many laps of 200 to 300 kilometres in addition to short everyday rides. Her personal best comes from a 24-hour race in which she covered 675 kilometres. As an ambassador for the Czech bicycle brand Festka, she tests their racing bikes, currently the Festka Spectre.
Kateřina Rusá describes her relationship with cycling, which is part of her daily life. She says: "It's so firmly anchored in my life that I don't even think about whether I'm going to cycle. I just know that I'm going to ride and I choose the right bike and the right clothes depending on the view out of the window and the rain radar."
"Those are respectable figures for me. In my racing career, I cycled the most in 2013 with just over 38,000 kilometres. So I can estimate how much time and effort Kateřina must dedicate to cycling," says Jiří Ježek, a former Czech professional cyclist and Paralympian. "From a racing or purely sporting point of view, such volumes are certainly not necessary, probably not even sensible."
Valuable test driver
The high number of annual kilometres are helpful for the bike sponsor: "Katka is an extremely valuable tester for the durability of not only our frames, but also the components from other manufacturers that we use for our bikes. No one else can ride our bikes for so many kilometres in all weathers and seasons. This gives us information that influences many of our decisions," says Michael Moureček, co-founder and product manager of Festka.
Kristian Bauer
Editor
