Because the course has varied, performances from different years are not entirely comparable. Records are usually expressed in terms of average speed, not total time, to account in part for differences in course length. For many years, the fastest men's speed was by Pete Penseyres in 1986, when he rode at an average of . This record was finally broken in 2013 by Christoph Strasser, who then smashed his own record the following year by riding at . The fastest woman was Seana Hogan in 1995, who averaged over .