The 27-year-old finished 28 laps of the Canberra course in 23 hours, 58.06 minutes.

That effort placed him comfortably ahead of last year’s champion, Melburnian Andrew Bell who completed 27 laps in 24:21:08.

Reigning European 24-hour champion, Zdenek Kriz, of the Czech Republic, was third when he completed 26 laps in 24:27:28.

It is has been a massive year for English who, quite literally, took on the mountain bike world in August.

After winning the 24-hour Australian Solo Championships in March the ecstacy turned to agony when English broke four vertabrae.

But not even that could derail this cyclist who clawed his way back to fitness to finish second at the World 24-hour Solo Mountain Bike Championships in Alberta, Canada.

As is always the case, the Port Macquarie rider did not concern himself too much with the opposition on the weekend.

“The race plan from the start was to keep an eye on everyone but to ride my own race,” English said.

“The quality of the riders at the moment is amazing and Australia continues to produce some of the best 24-hour

mountain bike riders in the world.

“I would love to see a 24-hour world championships here in Canberra sometime soon,”

English said.

Perfect weather conditions were seen right throughout the championships with a spectator crowd reaching over 6000 to cheer on over 2200 endurance riders across the course of the weekend.