Robert Marchand, this name, many would perhaps not know it in the sports world. But man has marked his time. And because at the age of 102 years, this cheerful cyclist has managed the feat of travelling nearly 27 kilometers an hour. It was early in the week.

The French old man has broken his own record time on track in the category of “more than 100 years”. In September 2012, he broke the record of 100 km of centenarians in the gym Mtry -Mory (Seine-et-Mama) in Lyon. Under the admiring gaze of 300 curious fans, he has traveled this distance in 4 hours 17 minutes and 27 seconds. An average speed of 23km/hour. A year and a half later, Robert Marchand did better browsing exactly 26.952 kilometers in an hour.

“I was good but in the end it started to be hard,” he said, barely out of breath at the end of his journey, the journalists who assailed him with questions. “I’m happy as a fish in water,” he continued, raising his arms to heaven at the request of his interlocutors.

Force of the nature, Mr. Marchand, who retired as gardener in Paris at the age of 89 years, lived an adventurous youth which led him to Venezuela as a truck driver and as a lumberjack in Canada.

Asked about his future and his future goals, Robert Marchand did not want to be greedy. “We must not blame too much life, we take nine months to be born and thirty seconds to click down, you know. This is life,” he replied. Understand who can.