As Lael Wilcox pedaled up to Buckingham Fountain on Wednesday at sunset with a slight tailwind and dozens of other bikers alongside her, it was the culmination of a decade of work in endurance biking. Her goal: setting the new women’s world record for biking the globe.
Wilcox finished her 18,125-mile trip — 125 miles longer than the required distance — in 108 days, 12 hours and 12 minutes, breaking the previous record of 124 days and 11 hours, set by cyclist Jenny Graham in 2018. She has two weeks to submit paperwork proving her new record, which she expects to be verified. Guinness World Records didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wilcox averaged about 175 miles a day while following the Guinness World Records’ criteria of only traveling in one direction, staying within 300 miles of the course and passing through two points on the Earth exactly opposite each other.
“I feel like I’ve been on this track for 10 years,” Wilcox, 38, told the Sun-Times. “All the racing and trips I’ve done and people I’ve met led to this moment. … It just felt so dreamy.”
Wilcox’s trip began May 26, when she started in Chicago. She picked the city because it gave her and her wife, photojournalist Rugile Kaladyte, who live in Tucson, a chance to visit family.
She estimates the adventure cost about $40,000, with help from sponsors Specialized Bike Components Inc. and Chicago-based SRAM. The combination of the financial support and her good health prompted her to take on the feat.
“I like to take on challenges where I don’t even know if I can finish it,” Wilcox said. “It just felt like the opportunity of a lifetime. I want to do this now, otherwise I might never get to do it.”
Her training consisted of frequent bike rides and a scheduled Saturday morning long ride to maintain the endurance she had built up over the last decade. As for her route, she relied on cyclist friends around the world who knew the local routes best.
It helps that Wilcox has never owned a car; she began cycling a few miles to work each day when she was 20, and within two years, she was biking across the country.
Seven years later, an injury put a stop to her running, and she entered her first race using her mom’s bike. The 400-mile competition showed her that she was cut out for distance riding. In 2018 she started cycling professionally after a decade of working at restaurants and bike shops to support herself.
Wilcox encourages others to take the first step toward distance cycling.
“Having a level of urgency in taking the first step to get out there” is important, Wilcox said. “We all have so many goals and dreams, sometimes they live in your mind for so long. If you can actively try one thing toward that goal, even if that’s biking for half an hour or walking a mile, then you’ve started.”
She said the final stretch of the ride — 35 days and more than 6,300 miles from Anchorage to Chicago — was the easiest. The hardest was the ride through Australia and New Zealand, where it was winter. She stopped to pick up extra layers of clothing in the Auckland airport to stay warm.
“In the middle it was like, ‘Am I gonna make it?’” Wilcox said. “Every day felt like a huge marathon, but I just tried to focus on a single day at a time and making a goal for that day, then getting a good night of sleep and going at it again.”
Kaladyte documented the entire trip and plans to release a documentary by the end of the year. Wilcox said she’s been looking at the photos and reminiscing about moments she had already forgotten.
Wilcox was joined by other cyclists who wanted to be part of the trip and cheered on by others on the streets along the route.
Wilcox said she wants to soak in the magnitude of her record-breaking feat and see family before taking on the next challenge.
“I’m gonna give myself a little time to enjoy this and see what comes up,” she said. “I’m so driven by my own excitement and goals, so something will pique my interest.”