The hour record, riding the longest distance as possible during exactly 60 minutes was a populare challenge since the birt of the bicycle.
Actually there were several “first” records during the 19th century:
James Moore, a British cyclist set the record of 23,3 km in 1873, but most likely it wasn’t an accurataly measured distance, only approximated. The American Frank Dodds managed to ride 16,508 km on a penny farthing bicycle in 1876. This was the universally accepted record till Henri Desgrange came and set the first official record in 1893. His result was 35,325 km.
A great rivalry evolved between the French Marcel Berthet (1887-1953) and the Swiss cyclist Oscar Egg (1890-1961) during the first few years of the 20th century. Both cyclists set new records three times during their career. (Only Chris Boardman has equaled Egg and Berthet’s feat of taking the record three times.)
Their records after each other:
20 Jun 1907, Marcel Berthet, Paris, 41.520 km
22 Aug 1912, Oscar Egg, Paris, 42.122 km
7 Aug 1913, Marcel Berthet, Paris, 42.741 km
21 Aug 1913, Oscar Egg, Paris, 43.525 km
20 Sep 1913, Marcel Berthet, Paris, 43.775 km
18 Aug 1914, Oscar Egg, Paris, 44.247 km
Egg’s record from 1914 was broken only by Francis Faure in 1933.