Amanda Coker breaks Kurt Searvogel's Year record - with 40 days to spare

86,000. In. a. year. Amazing.

http://www.bicycling.com/rides/records/is-amanda-coker-for-real

Quite an extraordinary achievement, by anybody. 

Could she have done it  / would she chose to do it under the conditions  that TG did (as described above)? Probably not.

Would TG have been able to do it / chosen to do it under her conditions? considering what has been said about the heat & humidity, possibly not. The  2 records stand under the same hat because they are what they are: 2 people riding a bike for as far as they can in a year under their own steam, using the best that technology and their resources allow on the day. 

We don't say that Sir Donald Campbell's speed record hasn't been broken because  the latest record didn't use solid rubber tyres, or wasn't done on Pendine Sands, or had 10 cylinders vs 16. It was the record of its day as was TG's, and so will this one stand as the record of our day.

An outstanding achievement, and one that I couldn't even begin to contemplate wanting to begin to challenge.

Yeah, we get the message.

 The idea of riding EVERYDAY in the Florida heat, humidity, heavy downpours and constant wind etc. is beyond my comprehension and I have actually seen her in action doing it.

We have a lot of bitter middle aged cyclists in the UK who should be playing golf rather than riding bike.

Congratulations but this must have been boring to death. I believe the 2-year record will be broken by a death row convict.

I just wanted to add a couple of my observations to this discussion. I first noticed this young woman posting 200 plus mile rides each day and leading the distance challenge leaderboard on Strava last May/June. I know the place that she is riding because I have ridden there in the past as well as riding with my wife while she did her first century ride there in late 2015. I saw the time Amanda was starting each day, so one day last August I got up at 4 a.m. drove across the state and was there at the time the park opened, introduced myself and proceeded to ride 166 miles with Amanda. The air temperature got up to about 91 degrees that day and the freshly paved surface was probably about 125 degrees. I'm from Florida and I am used to high temperatures but that day I could go no further...Very hot. Later in the year in Nov., two of my friends and I went back and rode 214 miles with Amanda in 10 hours. Even on that day I was unable to ride the entire day with her. I rode approximately 14500 miles last year and have ridden 50,000 miles in the past 4 years, so I am a pretty capable cyclist. The idea of riding EVERYDAY in the Florida heat, humidity, heavy downpours and constant wind etc. is beyond my comprehension and I have actually seen her in action doing it. I am not some fanboi of Amanda Coker's who is posting here to defend her from the detractors, I'm just a dedicated cyclist who has witnessed firsthand what it is that she is doing. And what she is doing is simply incredible and beyond what I believe 99% of cyclists are capable of. She is an absolutely amazing young woman who has overcome unbelievable challenges and made unbelievable sacrifices to follow her dream of breaking this record. I was also lucky enough to meet her parents Ricky and Donna who either singly or together come to the park at dawn each day and support their daughter all day long. I have huge respect for all of the previous record holders (including Kurt Searvogel) who I also rode twice with in 2015 as well as huge respect for Steve Abraham and Amanda Coker!! I would hope that all "true" cyclists have similar respect for what these special athletes have done and will do in the future.

Okay, for one thing Kurt Searvogel was not the record holder (despite what everyone thinks), he never broke the 'year' record, this still stood at 76,800 miles which is what TG did in 365 days of riding, remember KS didn't have to do a 'calendar' year but any 365 days, thus TG did a calendar year 75,065 but actually rode the further mileage over 365 days

No-one has intimated that TG was always on mountainous roads (20% is rare in the UK) in fact he shied away from the hillier parts of the country and he cycled to the West country during the winter to avoid as much ice and snow and rode to take advantage of prevailing winds as much as he could (but not being transported back to start point like KS was)

We know he was on 3/4 speed bikes, a Ley special 531 with SA 3 speed and the later Raleigh Record Ace with a 4 speed SA with 48/62/72/81 gear inches, bikes had dynohub lighting. He also carried as many as 10 spare tubular tyres due to the poor road conditions and that his RRA was 28lb/12.7kg stock, closer to 35lb all up with dynohub and light.

The wear and tear to the bike, due much in part to the road conditions was so much that Mr T.Ley had to give up sponsorship due to the cost in parts that the bike was requiring. Godwin did have people riding with him at various points along his routes to help and we are certain he went to Lands End but did mostly the potteries area and routes to London.

We also know that TG had some not so good days either through injury or foul weather, 59 miles being his lowest on 25th december 1939, we know he took one day off to meet with other cyclists at the prince of Wales pub, we know he wore wellington boots when it was snowing and had to make up a lot of the mileages in the better months.

The 31 days of July 1939 for instance, he rode 8581 miles, 4046 miles in two weeks, 1500 miles in 5 of those days with a single daily high of 361 miles in June'39.

As a committed vegetarian it was a case of lots of jam butties, cheese and eggs as his staple.

Yes the achievement by AC is fantastic, there is no doubt about it, phenominal in fact, personally I don't have a female 'agenda' I don't care whether it's a man or woman, in my honest opinion the greatest competitive cyclist of all time is a woman, however riding round on closed circuit routes protected from the elements and/or being transported back to a location to take advantage of terrain/winds and also riding recumbents are different records compared to that of TG and that attempted by Steve Abraham and others.

Modern kit as much as you can afford, no problem, drafting by other riders in a bunch, no problem, setting out or relocating yourself (unaided) to take advantage of weather/wind/terrain, no problem, if you can get light traffic/no traffic roads, fantastic, if those roads are as smooth as a babies bum even better, that's just how it is. But the record has to have limits as to what is acceptable so we can have a reasonable like for like just like all records in athletic competition, so myself and others feel that certain aspects are beyond what is acceptable and the UMCA have made up rules (or not applied common sense in not adding some rules) and made a right hodge-podge of it right from the off which mean that no semblence of comparison can be made and thus are not the same records.

I know some have said these efforts are cheating, well they aren't, they've ridden to the rules, it's just the the UMCA have made the rules such that any remote comparison to TG or the record holders before him such as the original holder Marcel Planes, the superhuman Australian Ossie Nelson, superlative riders like Menzies, Bennet and Greaves simply cannot be made.

I'm pleased to be living in an age where people are still out there breaking records. Probably just as many cars on Amanda's route as there were on Tommy's 1939 roads.

I'm also thrilled my daughter has a hero to look up to.

Congrats Amanda - stunning achievement, and with over a month to go.

Chapeau, and after such an injury!

I couldn't do it on a closed track indoors with a wind machine blowing me a tailwind the entire way, so I don't really care where she is cycling..

Brilliant achievement by all accounts.

I can't begin to imagine how mind numbing doing those laps but have been. If anything it's more challenging than doing it open road. Staggering mental resilience.

The tedium must have been more numbing than the saddle

A great achievement, as much in persistence as effort.

Not that you're wrong turbo, you just missed the point entirely. Feel free to go through past articles related to women sticking their head above the parapet and you'll soon get the picture on attitudes towards women around here.

If you change the rules to stipulate hills, then people will just argue over who have the most difficult hills etc...

Its a distance record pure and simple - it may have evolved from Godwin's time, but then so have most things.

Time to pop the chill pill and marvel at the achivement.

(at least she didn't go for the indoor velodrome.....)

An average of over 230 per day, that's over TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY miles per day and people are dissing her, unbelievable. Most riders don't do that in week, let alone a day. She is riding to an approved  set of rules and given what she's been through, I don't think I'd want to be riding on public roads either. Respect.

Deeply impressive, even more so given her history. 

There was a guy in a video recently took a tap from a lorry in a cycle lane. Seemed fine afterwards. But he's quit cycling.

Amanda has been through a special kind of hell from her cycling accident, and I doubt she'll ever fully recover from her injuries, yet she's out breaking a distance record. It's not even a grey area. The rules are clearly set, it's just a monumental challenge that few people could even dream about attempting. I'd last a week, and I'm competitive. 

But again, she's, 1. a woman, and 2. it's a distance record, so yes, she'll get shit on from every conceivable angle, which is a rather obvious pattern on road.cc. 

What I want to know is, why would anyone doing a distance record ride into the wind, or on hilly routes. That's beyond stupid. Apply that logic to any sport and see if you don't get laughed at.

Coker and Abraham are both riding to the same set of rules (UMCA HAMR). Neither is doing it exactly in the same manner as Godwin. If you want, you can set up your own rival to the UMCA and claim that your records are the "real" ones.

Did I tell you I did 6 days in Tenerife,    I bet I've done more vertical ft than she has?

No Seriously that is some major achievement.  Yes the conditions are different, but I challenged most of you to do 10% of that in a year.  

Chapeau to her after such life threatening injuries.

Thank you to those who took the time to bravely speak out against the achievements of a seriously injured 24 year old girl.

Meh..

There seems to be two camps as regards this. One is the 'great achievement' and the other is in the 'it's sort of cheating'  camp.  My view is it's crackers. If I'd recovered from all those injuries and could average 20mph a day I'd not be riding around the same place every day. Sounds like purgatory to me.

maybe the rules/catergories need changing.

Round parks/closed circuit has it's own record and being driven (back) to preferred starting points for wind/weather/elevation purposes to be banned.

Also, 'bents to be different class/record for that, just as other aspects of cycling.

It is as stated above not like for like.

TG did receive help with some drafting but on open roads plus open to elements and actual hills the impact compared to riding with others on a complete flat with less exposure to elements (due to trees etc) is fairly different.

Well those three comments somewhat summed her effort up. Lets hope Steve Abraham takes it back and makes it an 'open road' challenge again, and on a 'bike' bike.