Lael Wilcox hopped on her bicycle in Chicago in May. Three and a half months later, she was back, having ridden 18,000 miles around the world and set what is being hailed as a new women’s record.
Wilcox, 38, of Tucson, Ariz., rode east to New York, flew to Portugal and crossed Europe to Georgia, traversed Australia and New Zealand, and finished with a haul from Anchorage, Alaska, back to Chicago on Wednesday.
“I’ve done a race that goes from Canada to Mexico through the Rockies five times,” Wilcox said. “I raced across the U.S. and won overall, even beating the men. So I’ve had experience in races that take two weeks or so.” But she said she had never competed in a race that took as long as this ride.
“For those shorter races, I try to limit sleep,” she said. “For this, I took more care of myself and had lots more fun. It was probably the most fun ride of my life.”
What counts as biking the world?
With oceans inconveniently filling much of the Earth’s surface, a true circumnavigation by bicycle is impossible. So rules were laid down by Guinness to determine what counts. Wilcox had to complete at least 18,000 miles, travel in the same direction and finish where she started.
She also had to pass two points that are antipodal, or located on opposite sides of the Earth. For her, those were Madrid and Wellington. Planning it all was a tricky matter of logistics.
The cycling press reported that Wilcox’s 108-day ride was expected to be ratified as breaking the record of 124 days set by Jenny Graham of Scotland in 2018. And it was often a long day in the saddle. “In the end it was 12 hours riding, sleeping seven hours a night,” Wilcox said.
Some routes were easier than others.
“I had some limitation riding across Asia,” she said. “It’s not really safe to ride across Russia now. Some people in the past have done Mongolia-Russia-China. But there are a lot of places you just can’t go to.
“I had considered riding Bangkok to Singapore, but that didn’t add much distance. So I decided to extend in Europe — in Turkey and Georgia.”
Her water froze in Australia and New Zealand winters.
Wilcox said the hardest part was “probably Australia and New Zealand in the middle of winter. My water bottles were freezing, there was rain and wind, and it would get dark about 5 p.m.”
The bane of cyclists is car traffic. “I tried to take secondary or quieter roads,” Wilcox said. Unfortunately, “that sent me over quite a few mountains.”
“Across Turkey, I was on a pretty major route,” she added. “I had a bad road through Syria as well. I had to ride a couple sections on I-40 in California and Arizona because there wasn’t another option.
“Sometimes I would ride through poverty-stricken areas. You see more dogs, more debris on the street. But I never felt in any physical danger.”
Thousands of bicyclists joined in for different stretches.
Wilcox was accompanied by her wife, Rue Kaladyte, a photojournalist who traveled by car — initially a Subaru Outback, then a string of different cars. But for the most part, Kaladyte did not follow closely, as a support car would, and Wilcox often only saw her in the evening. “Basically I was out there by myself,” Wilcox said.
But not all of the time. Wilcox extended an invitation on social media for anyone who wanted to join her. A few thousand did. “I had an open invite: If you’re around, come ride with me,” she said. “People would just pop up all over the place. Sometimes they’d stay for five minutes, but a few people rode with me for an entire day.”
Enthusiasts could follow along on her website, where she posted an itinerary and mapped out her routes.
Under the rules, Wilcox could not draft behind any of these guests. Not that many of them were going faster than her. “Sometimes, I was keeping a pretty good pace, and they were just sitting on my wheel,” she said.
A mix of camping and hotels, and bakery sandwiches in Europe.
Wilcox mostly stayed in hotels. But she slept outside for about two weeks in total. “I did a few pretty remote stretches in Australia and British Columbia,” she said.
As for sustenance: “I tried to have a real breakfast and a real dinner.” In Europe, she said, “I just went to a bakery and bought a sandwich.”
When she started her career as a long-distance cyclist, Wilcox supported herself by working odd jobs at bike shops. But after 10 years of racking up accolades, she picked up enough sponsors to finance a round-the-world journey.
She put a girdle around the Earth in 108 days. One day afterward, Wilcox was asked whether she had ridden since.
“Not yet,” she said. “But I’ll go for a little bike ride this afternoon or tomorrow morning.”
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