Around the world in 108 days — on a bike

SQUAMISH, BRITISH COLUMBIA - Lael Wilcox was smiling as she pulled up to a bike shop in this Canadian mountain town an hour north of Vancouver in August, with about 40 fans and fellow cyclists riding after her.

It was far from obvious that Wilcox, a 38-year-old long-distance bike racer who grew up in Alaska and now lives in Tucson, had ridden 14,000 miles on her way to the record for fastest global circumnavigation on a bike by a woman.

Last week, she finished her ride in Chicago - 108 days, 12 hours and 12 minutes, after departing the same spot in May - to beat the previous women’s record of 124 days held by Jenny Graham. Wilcox traveled 18,125 miles and climbed nearly 630,000 feet - the equivalent of going up Mount Everest from sea level 22 times - on a route that took her through North America, Europe, Turkey, Australia and New Zealand.

[‘The ride of my life’: Anchorage’s Lael Wilcox smashes women’s record for cycling around the world]

She braved North Sea headwinds in the Netherlands, long narrow tunnels in Turkey, thundering “road train” transport trucks in the Australian outback and deadly heat in the Mojave Desert. All along the way, thousands of people came out to support her and share some of the miles.

“She just rides and rides; it’s amazing,” said Eve Tyman, one of Wilcox’s supporters who came to say hello during the Squamish pit stop. “She absolutely flies.”

Wilcox was working at a restaurant in Alaska in 2014 when she entered a 400-mile race using her mom’s bike. She finished second and felt like she could keep going. In 2015, she set the women’s record on the Tour Divide, a route that traces the spine of the Rocky Mountains from Banff, Alberta, to the Mexican border. Her mark of 15 days and 11 hours still stands.

In 2016 she won the cross-America Trans Am, posting the second-fastest time in the event’s history of just more than 18 days. Then, in 2017, ultradistance cycling legend Mike Hall was hit and killed by a driver during a race in Australia, rocking the small community of multiweek bike racers.

“At that point, I hit the brakes,” Wilcox said. “I was like, I’m just going to stay off-road, like dirt roads and mountain biking. It’s too risky.”

Wilcox became a fixture on the off-road endurance cycling scene, winning the women’s categories of the Tour Divide race twice and beating some of the sport’s top men at numerous multiday races around the world.

But the potential for an around-the-world bid lingered in her mind, she said. In 2023, she rode 4,000 miles on the road from Anchorage, down to the start of the Tour Divide race. “I loved it so much,” she says, and decided it was time.

Four women have held the Guinness Book of World Records title for fastest circumnavigation of the globe by bike. They have all taken different routes. The Guinness rules state that the ride must travel more than 18,000 miles, hit two opposite points on the globe, travel in one direction and take only commercially available flights for the hops between continents.

Graham, a Scot who held the women’s record before Wilcox, racked up the 18,000 miles by crossing Europe, biking across Russia, down through Mongolia and China, over to Australia and New Zealand and then through Alaska, Canada, the mainland United States and back home to Europe.

Wilcox started in Chicago, flew to Portugal from New York City, crossed Europe and then rode 1,000 miles through Turkey and Georgia before flying straight to Australia, skipping the bulk of mainland Asia.

Her route generated more than a few social media comments from people asking whether taking a flight from Georgia in the Caucasus to Perth, Australia, counted as biking around the world. The route followed Guinness’s rules and is the same distance as Graham’s and that of Mark Beaumont, the overall record holder.

Graham said she’s thankful she went across Russia and Mongolia on her route. “It was difficult with the cultural differences and language, and the roads were much worse,” she said in an interview. “But my soul just felt so on fire, so I look back and I feel really lucky that I did it at the time I did.”

After Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, things have changed, especially for Americans.

“Russia didn’t seem like a responsible choice,” Wilcox said. “Instead I’m focusing on the positive of where can I go … I can go so many places. What a gift.”

She pointed to Vendangi Kulkarni, an Indian woman who also is aiming for the world record. Vedangi’s route hops around the world, taking in India, Mongolia, New Zealand, Peru and a longer stretch in Europe because she couldn’t get a visa to some of the places Wilcox and other European or American riders were able to.

Wilcox and her wife, Rugile Kaladyte, who is a professional filmmaker and supported her throughout the trip, recorded a daily podcast every night of the ride. They encouraged people to come join Wilcox along the way, and in Squamish, she estimated more than 2,000 people rode with her at different points of the trip.

Families with kids in tow, professional cyclists and weekend warriors brought her cookies and cola throughout the ride. In Wellington, New Zealand, one rider introduced himself as the country’s foreign minister. Another man said he recently had been diagnosed with cancer. Every night, she recounted the day with Kaladyte on the podcast, her enthusiasm brimming even as she would sometimes fall asleep while recording.

“It’s very Lael; it’s exactly her style,” Graham said. “She really wants to encourage other people to be on bikes.”

Wilcox also spent a lot of time alone. Biking across the lonely south coast of Australia, she says she felt the sheer size of the Earth as she crawled across its surface. Her longest previous continuous trip was 18 days across the United States. “I had no idea how this was going to go,” Wilcox said.

Every morning she woke up in awe of the challenge, she said. “Then I have breakfast and drink a coffee and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’”

Ultralong distance cycling is a mental sport, said Sofiane Sehili, one of the top competitors and a former Tour Divide winner.

“We love cycling, but when you’ve been doing it for 12 hours a day for even just 30 days, it’s human to want to rest for a day and not go,” Sehili said. “But you have to go.”

Wilcox suffered from a poison ivy-type rash in Europe, and then had some stomach problems in Turkey. She wore a high-viz vest and kept her bright lights charged for safety. Biking through the night in Australia, giant “road trains” - tractor trailers with as many as three full-sized trailers - would roar past her, shaking her on her bike.

But overall, she managed to do the trip without significant problems or injuries. On the podcast, she started to talk about feeling the fatigue only as she biked through the southwest United States, just a week or two from finishing.

During shorter races, Wilcox will sleep just four hours a night, but on this adventure, she got seven hours every night. “I’m never sleep-deprived,” she said. “That makes a world of difference.”

She also ate a lot. At the Squamish pit stop, supporters brought doughnuts decorated with icing images of the globe. While mechanics worked on her bike, she stood eating, as the doughnuts and a bag of blueberries and peaches she had been gifted steadily disappeared.

Wilcox isn’t done. This winter, she’ll return to Alaska to bike the famous Iditirod sled dog race route. That’s what she would think about while rain dumped on her in Europe or temperatures plummeted below freezing in New Zealand.

“It’ll be way worse there so I have nothing to complain about,” she said. “Maybe it’s good to have something scarier outside of this cause. Then I’m like, ‘What I’m doing is fine, I just need to keep eating, keep riding.’”