Lael Wilcox isn’t one to decelerate. The fourth-generation Alaskan bike owner has scored her share of accomplishments, setting new data on the Continental Divide, the Trans Am, or simply each main highway in Alaska.
Apparently, these epic rides nonetheless weren’t lengthy sufficient. After three and a half months, Wilcox has set a brand new ladies’s report for quickest world circumnavigation by bicycle.
Her 18,125-mile journey started in Could, when the 38-year-old set out from Chicago. After using east to New York, she flew to Portugal and commenced her trek throughout Europe, ending in Georgia. Then she traversed Australia and New Zealand earlier than ending off the epic journey by biking from Alaska again to her begin level in Chicago, the place she arrived Wednesday.
In complete, the journey took her 108 days, 12 hours, and 12 minutes, shaving about 16 days off the earlier Guinness World File set by Scottish bike owner Jenny Graham in 2018. On Instagram this week, she referred to as the journey “the trip of her life.”
“It’s the most effective I’ve ever felt on the finish of a protracted trip,” she wrote. “I can’t imagine I’m penning this, however I already need to get again on my bike — principally, I’m simply absorbing this unbelievable journey.”
14-Hour Days within the Saddle
The principles for efficiently biking or operating across the globe are a bit difficult — as you may think for a planet that’s principally coated in water.
To be eligible for the world report, a bike owner should begin and finish their journey in the identical place. They have to additionally journey repeatedly in a single route, and canopy greater than 18,000 miles on the bicycle. As well as, the full journey distance, together with flights, should quantity to at the least 24,854 miles — roughly the circumference of the equator. As soon as began, the clock doesn’t cease throughout the try.
To interrupt the earlier report set in 2018 by Scotland’s Graham (124 days, 11 hours), Wilcox spent as much as 14 hours per day within the saddle. She typically coated distances of greater than 186 miles. Generally, Wilcox even coated greater than 248 miles in a single day, based on Strava, the place she logged her months-long trip.
Customers of the favored biking and outside app will discover that Wilcox set loads of smaller data on her approach around the globe. The truth is, she racked up greater than 110 course data over her 108 days on the highway.
As for Wilcox’s speedy plans for the longer term, they nonetheless contain — as you may guess — extra biking. She’s headed subsequent to North Carolina to go to her sister, the place she’s “hoping to squeeze in a little bit bike journey with my household,” she mentioned on Instagram. After that, she’s obtained her first board assembly in Missoula, Mont., with the Journey Biking Affiliation.
For this grasp bike owner, there’s no slowing down.
