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news
Video: Kasja Tylen overtakes Billie Fleming’s 1938 record distance
Nottingham-based Kasja Tylen has surpassed the distance ridden by Billie Fleming in 1938 when she set what is now the Guinness World Record for the longest distance cycled by a woman in a year.
Across the Atlantic, however, American cyclist Amanda Coker is continuing to eat up the miles and remains on track to rack up an incredible 80,000 miles over 12 months – although she is riding under different rules.
Fleming, known at the time as Billie Dovey – the surname of her first husband – rode 29,603.7 miles in 1938. She died in 2014 at the age of 100.
Tylen, riding under Guinness World Record rules, set out to beat her record on 1 January this year, and overtook Fleming’s distance yesterday, posting a video to her YouTube channel afterwards.
The 40-year-old, who during her attempt has ridden in the UK and in countries on the continent including Germany, Sweden and Finland, said: "I've just passed Billie Fleming's mileage, how exciting is that?"
She plans to carry on riding until 11 December. She has been logging her ride with Guinness World Records, which should confirm her record at a later point.
Coker, aged 24, has now ridden 42,611 miles a little more than six months after setting out on 15 May.
> Amanda Coker overtakes Billie Fleming’s distance – in just four months
She has been riding under Ultra Marathon Cycling Association (UMCA) rules, and while Guinness World Records does recognise such attempts – as it did with Kurt Searvogel when he surpassed Tommy Godwin’s 1939 distance earlier this year – it does so under a separate category.
Searvogel rode 76,076 miles, and towards the end of his attempt rode laps of a seven-mile circuit in a park in Tampa, Florida, which is where Coker has undertaken her effort. With a daily average of almost 220 miles, she is on target to surpass his distance by next May.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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At the end of the consultation in May 2025, a decision will be taken.........
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BAM!
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18 comments
Kajsa would like you to come to Nottingham to help her celebrate 50,000km on Sunday December 11th. She expects to reach that before 11th (and it's looking very likely)
There will be an easy 12 mile ride around Nottingham starting at 10am, FREE TEA/COFFE AND CAKE after the ride and a choir.
It'd be very good to show her your support.
More details are here on her Facebook event.
If you type "A Year in the Saddle" into the Facebook search engine, you should find it easily enough.
An amazing achievement. Well done Kasja!
Kasja did a talk at the Rapha store in Manchester a couple of weeks ago along with Emily Chapell (transcontinental winner, 2016). There was a collective "holy shit!!" gasp when she said how far she'd ridden this year.
She'd ridden to Manchester from Nottingham to do the talk, she was lovely. Very down to earth, self-depracating, funny.
I do think though that the records set by Tommy Godwin and Billie Fleming should stand on their own. People above quite rightly highlighting the difference between what Kasja is doing vs the traffic-free laps of a park that Amanda is doing but I still view the records from the 30's as being in a world of their own.
No lycra, no gels or nutrition supplements, a candle on the front for light, riding a heavy 3spd boneshaker bike on poor roads... That is just staggering!
Yeah she's riding until 8am on 31st December. Exactly 365 days after she started.
You cant really compare the two record attempts. One doing laps of a traffic free flat circuit. The other riding a bike properly.
Ah, delicous scoun sconns.
Chapeau to both of them. Why nothing in UK press about Kasja Tylen's effort?
Kasja is riding until 31st December not 11th and well done to her!
I disagree, I'm with Japes on this one. The American woman is basically doing endless laps of a park for a whole year which sounds absolutely stultifyingly dull.
chapeau!
much more impressive than that daft american going in circles round a car park.
What is it with commenters on this site and Americans getting the year records? Seems like the British Sitting On Arse And Moaning Year Record would be much tougher to break.
Doing 200 miles a day via laps of several miles in a flat, sheltered, warm park is impressive But spending all day on normal, hilly, windy roads with traffic is far more so.
You don't have to be British to draw that distinction (eg this year, according to strava, Tylen has done 600,000+ feet; Coker 100,000. In 50,000-odd miles). Or indeed, to sit on your arse.
Indeed. Amanda Coker's achievements are very special, but Kajsa Tylén's efforts are just as impressive given that she stuck to her decision not to benefit from drafting. Early on in Kajsa's attempt I thought there might have been a wobble when Amanda Coker started and was following HAMR's different rules. All the best to them both.
If all you're going to do is circuits of a park in Tampa (not renowned as the hilliest region of the US), then why not go the whole hog and stay indoors and do the whole thing on a turbo trainer?
Because it wouldn't count.
Kajsa is also only allowed to use one bike for the whole attempt and if it needs to be replaced, it must be the same.
+3, it's a little annoying, but not the biggest problem in the world - a fix would be appreciated!
+2
Your RSS feed is wrong:
The RSS feed uses this url: http://road.cc/content/news/212620-video-kasja-tylen-overtakes-billie-fl...
The actual page is at this URL: http://road.cc/content/news/212620-video-kasja-tylen-overtakes-billie-fl...
Note the %25 i nthe incorrect url that dissappear in the correct one. The same problem applies to all items in the feed. A fix would be great! Thanks.
+1
It's been bugging me for ages. Reported it a while ago but clearly nothing's happened.