A US “ultra-endurance” bicycle owner has claimed a brand new world file for quickest girl to avoid the globe by bike.
Lael Wilcox took 108 days, 12 hours and 12 minutes to cycle 18,125 miles (29,169km), beginning and ending in Chicago.
She beat the 2018 file held by Jenny Graham, from Scotland, whose journey took 124 days 11 hours.
Wilcox, 38, of Alaska, set off on 28 Could, crossing 21 international locations on 4 continents earlier than arriving again in Chicago round 21:00 native time (02:00 GMT) on Wednesday.
She cycled as much as 14 hours a day on her journey, which is able to now be verified for inclusion within the Guinness Ebook of World Data.
Consultants estimate ultra-endurance cyclists can burn anyplace from 6,000 to 10,000 energy a day on their bikes.
“She simply has such unbelievable bodily stamina, psychological toughness and simply sheer dedication to exit and do these excessive efforts,” mentioned Anne-Marije Rook, North America editor at Biking Weekly journal.
“It is only a super effort to have the ability to try this day in and time out for 108 days straight.”
Wilcox was the primary feminine rider to win the TransAm, a 4,000-mile race throughout the size of the US. She has additionally set information within the Tour Divide, a gruelling race traversing the American continental divide alongside the Rocky Mountains.
Whereas her newest file is billed as a “trip all over the world”, Guinness guidelines solely require riders to start out and finish in the identical place, at all times travelling in the identical route.
A rider’s whole journey, together with flights, ferries and public transit, should equal a complete distance equal to 40,000km – the circumference of the Earth’s equator.
After pushing off from Chicago, Wilcox headed for New York, the place she boarded a flight to Portugal.
She then spent a number of weeks journeying north to Amsterdam, down by Germany, throughout the Alps, into the Balkans and finally throughout Turkey to Georgia.
She then flew to Australia, using from Perth alongside the southern coast to Brisbane the place she hopped on a flight to New Zealand.
After overlaying each islands she flew to her hometown of Anchorage, pedalled alongside the Pacific coast to Los Angeles, then took Route 66 to Chicago.
Graham, the present record-holder, mentioned she had spent the day cheering on Wilcox’s end: “It is probably the most superb factor to see ladies on the market pushing their sport the best way they need to. I am only a huge fan.”
Rook, of Biking Weekly, mentioned the efforts of Wilcox and Graham have been motivation for others: “What Jenny Graham, Lael Wilcox, and ladies like them are doing is simply pushing the boundaries. Not simply in what’s doable when it comes to biking, however the boundaries which were set on ladies athletes.”
Wilcox charted her journey with a collection of social media movies made along with her filmmaker spouse, Rugile Kaladyte. The couple have additionally printed a day by day podcast, chronicling the day by day ups and downs of the journey.
Wilcox’s new file might already be below menace, nevertheless. Vedangi Kulkarni, 25-year-old Indian extremely bicycle owner, is 65 days and roughly 7,700km into her try. She too is aiming to finish her trip in 110 days.