← All events24 Heures d'INSA Lyon
24hr road cycling race on a flat ~3km campus circuit in Lyon, France. Solo and relay teams. Student festival atmosphere. Warm conditions, no climbing.
Twenty-four hours flat out on a 3km campus circuit, with nowhere to hide. No climbs to break the rhythm, no descents to coast. On a flat loop your power sets your speed, lap after lap, for a full day and night.
It runs on the INSA Lyon campus in Villeurbanne, wrapped inside one of France's biggest student festivals: tens of thousands of visitors, live bands, food stalls. The crowd carries you through the afternoon and back again at dawn.
Solo is the real test. Well over 250 near-identical laps through a warm May day, a short night and out the other side. The heat, the monotony and the saddle break riders long before the legs do.
One lap
A flat, sealed ~3km loop around the INSA campus, ridden over and over for 24 hours. Barely any climbing per lap, so effectively zero: smooth tarmac, a handful of corners, and full daylight rolling into a roughly nine-hour night.
Who finishes, and how
Is 24 Heures d'INSA Lyon for you?
- Diesel engines who thrive on steady power. With no climbs to hide the effort, the rider who holds a patient sub-threshold pace all day beats the one who surges.
- Riders who can grind out monotony. Solo means well over 250 identical laps, so mental strategies matter as much as fitness.
- Anyone chasing a first 24-hour solo without technical risk. Smooth tarmac and a lapped circuit mean the challenge is pure endurance, not bike handling.
- Heat-tolerant riders. The main enemy here is a warm Lyon May, not cold or terrain, so those who cope with sun and hydration hold the edge.
Training plan for 24 Heures d'INSA Lyon
A training plan for 24 Heures d'INSA Lyon isn't a generic base build. Beina reads the event's exact demands, looks at your specific profile and the time you actually have, and maps a highly adapted plan to the start line.
- Relentless steady power: a flat loop offers no descents to rest on, so the effort never stops.
- Heat management through a warm May day, with temperatures that can push past 25C.
- A roughly nine-hour night and a 3 to 5am circadian low to ride through.
- Monotony and saddle comfort over hundreds of near-identical laps.
- Long steady Z2 rides building from 2 up to 6 hours, holding power with minimal heart-rate drift.
- Tempo blocks: 2 to 3 x 20-40 min at Z3 inside a longer ride to lock in race pace around IF 0.60-0.65.
- Overnight rides through 1 to 2am to train the body clock for the night section.
- A 6 to 8 hour race simulation to rehearse fuelling and bike comfort at target intensity.
- Built from your current fitness and the time you actually have
- Adapts every week as Beina learns how you respond
- Syncs your sessions straight to Garmin and Wahoo
- One clear next session, never a wall of spreadsheet
