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.