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

(CNN) — 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.”

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.