‘Maybe, they won’t doubt the next woman’: American cyclist Lael Wilcox on her 18,000-mile world record

Long before endurance cyclist Lael Wilcox became the fastest woman to ever ride around the world, men at the bar she worked in used to tell her she was lying about her achievements.

“That infuriated me,” she said in an interview with CNN Sport. “They didn’t believe I did the rides! It’s crazy. Like, ‘You think I’m lying about what I’ve done?’”

There can be no doubting the American this time. Having completed an 18,000-mile trip around the globe in September – 108 days, 12 hours and 12 minutes after she set off – Wilcox beat the previous best time by more than two weeks.

The route saw her start and end in Chicago, taking in Europe, Australia and New Zealand before returning to hometown of Anchorage, Alaska, riding down the West Coast and along Route 66.

Traversing 21 countries in total, the route fulfilled Guinness’ requirements, which state that a cyclist must travel in the same direction, start and end in the same place, and rack up at least 18,000 miles – the total circumference of the globe – for an around-the-world attempt to be successful.

It was an idea that had occurred to her in 2016 as she cycled across the US from Oregon to Virginia as part of the TransAm Bike Race, an event which she would go on to win, becoming the first woman and first American ever to do so.

“It was this kind of light bulb moment, big idea, and I thought, ‘Well, what do I need to do that?’ The only thing I did was get a new passport!” she remembered. “I went across the country and, by the end, I was totally dead. I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m going to keep going.’”

Eight years later, Wilcox has finally completed the remarkable feat. “It was the ride of my life. I loved it,” she said. “It’s just over a month since I finished, but in some ways, it feels like it happened five years ago.”

‘A woman can achieve that’

Part of the fuel for her trip, she explained, came from wanting to prove the doubters wrong.

“It lights a fire under me because I get this kind of fight in me, where I’m like, ‘I have to prove it,’” she said. “This is important. I want them to see that we can do this. And, you know, that pushes me to race.

“Maybe, they’ll read about it and it’ll change their minds. Maybe, they won’t doubt the next woman that said they did a ride.”

At various stages along her journey, Wilcox was joined by women she had met from Komoot’s Women’s Rallies, an initiative she and Komoot – a mobile app for route planning and navigation – began three years ago, in which between 50 and 70 women join Wilcox on a long ride over multiple days.

“I would almost always be the only woman at any event I went to,” explained Wilcox. “I just thought, ‘Can we change that? Can we encourage more women to be out there?’

“Some of the rallies have had 1,600 people register,” she continued. “The age range: I think it’s been like 19 to 70. From all over the world, probably like 60 different countries, and so I get to hear their stories.

“One ride, a woman was like three months pregnant. When this happens, it inspires all the others around because they’re like, ‘Well, if she can do it, then I can do it too.’”

A test of endurance

While Wilcox is passionate about showing what’s possible, her trip was far from straightforward.

“Day four, I was throwing up all day, it never stopped raining and I was getting punctures.

“(Later) I got some kind of poison ivy in Germany, and so then I had it spreading on my stomach, my legs, my arms, for like three weeks,” she remembered. “I was like, ‘Is this going to go away or do I need to go to the hospital?’ Eventually, it went away.

“I must have eaten something bad in Turkey and I had a bad stomach for two weeks in Australia,” Wilcox grimaced. “I couldn’t keep food in my system to have enough energy to ride well, so I was just kind of at half speed, feeling pretty bad.”

To Wilcox, these setbacks are all part of the journey. However, there were a number of more universal obstacles that she found harder to accept.

“Climate change is affecting things,” she said. “The first full week from Chicago to New York City, it was like thunder and lightning storms every day.

“I started racing in 2015 and I think, in that time, the storms are just a lot stronger. We used to kind of rely on pretty good summer weather, and I don’t think you can rely on that anymore.”

An increase in the severity of storms is not the only change Wilcox has noticed. “When we got to Europe, it was way hotter than it usually is,” she said. “Even through the Basque Country and the Pyrenees, it was like 80, 85, 90 degrees (Fahrenheit). And they were like, ‘This is not normal.’

“It’s sad, you know?” she continued. “In these really special places, that’s changing pretty rapidly, so it motivates me to do what I can now, like this around-the-world.

“I thought, ‘If I don’t do it now, I might not get the chance.’”

The home stretch

As Wilcox returned to the US and began the last leg of her journey, she began to feel that everything had been worth all the sickness and storms.

“Coming through San Francisco, I had like 200 riders (with me), and my family. So, so cool,” she remembered.

Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma soon followed, before the final stretch across Missouri and up through Illinois to Chicago.

“It was incredible. It was almost this thing that kind of built from three days until the finish,” said Wilcox. “I was so focused on every single day that I wasn’t thinking about finishing, ever. Because that seems like, ‘I can’t go there, what if something happens?’ You know? Mentally, I just kind of blocked that.

“And then three days from the finish, I’m a little over 1,000km (around 621.4 miles), maybe 1,100km (about 683.5 miles), and then I start doing the math in my head like, ‘When could I finish from here?’”

Already on course to comfortably beat the record, Wilcox was still not content.

“At first, I thought four days. And then I thought, if I push it a little bit, I go faster and I go a little bit farther each day, I could finish in three. And then the idea of shaving a day off set me on fire,” she said.

“I was riding faster than I had the whole trip, and I just had this extra energy kind of pulling me to the end.”

The end, when it finally came, is a moment the 38-year-old will remember for the rest of her life.

“I finished in Chicago, just at sunset. And it was, like, the same path I had taken away three-and-a-half months before, seeing it again coming into the skyline, the most beautiful time of day. That was so, so incredible,” she reflected. “I just started crying, you know?

“There were probably 100 people riding with me, and then maybe like 100 people just waiting at the statue (where the trip finished),” said Wilcox. “I didn’t know what to expect and I was just kind overcome with emotion, like: ‘I did it.’”

Just over a month since it was set, Wilcox’s around-the-world record is already potentially under threat. Indian cyclist Vedangi Kulkarni became the youngest woman to cycle around the world in 2018 and is currently part of the way through another attempt to become the fastest.

Wilcox is just happy that more and more women are taking up the challenge. “I think records are meant to be broken,” she said.

“I had a good ride, I’m happy with it. I’d love for someone else to go out and smash it, you know? And then I think, would that make me want to go do it again? To try to go faster?

“My muscles are tight, my immunity is low, but I still just want to ride my bike.”

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