We’ve all heard the stories of just how hard the Tour de France was before World War One, but Swiss rider Patrick Seabase decided to tackle one particular stage, and make it harder.

Seabase tackled the mighty 300km Pyrenean stage from Bagneres-de-Luchon to Bayonne, taking in five mountain passes, including the formidable Col du Tourmalet – which will be tackled on stage eight of the 2016 Tour.

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Instead of doing it on a state of the art road bike – which would have been enough of a challenge in itself – Seabase tackled it on a 47×17 fixed-gear bike, with no brakes.

You can check out the documentary about this gruelling ride on the Red Bull website.

Remarkably he completed the ride in just 15 hours 52 minutes and 52 seconds – an average speed of over 24kph and maxing out at a mindboggling 57kph.

When you have no other way of slowing down on the mountains than simply stopping pedalling, I imagine it got a bit hairy on the descents.

Seabase was congratulated at the time by his fellow Swiss Fabian Cancellara on Twitter:

The 2016 Tour de France heads into the Pyrénées for three stages, including one that could a summit finish in Andorra that could be decisive for the overall GC.