106-year-old French cyclist finally decides to hang up his helmet

A centenarian French cyclist whose exploits garnered fans worldwide is retiring, ready for more leisurely rides after racing into the record books, his friends told AFP. But Robert Marchand, 106, is still eating up kilometres on the stationary bike at his modest studio apartment northeast of Paris.
Last January, Marchand pedalled for 22.547 kilometres (14.01 miles) in an hour at the national velodrome in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines west of Paris. It was a new record for his age group - though the category had to be created specially for him, and he had no competition. "His doctors don't want him to make these huge efforts any more," his neighbour Christian Bouchard said, confirming a report in the local newspaper La Marne. In 2014, he had managed 26.927km in one hour, the record for racers over 100.