American cyclist Denise Mueller-Korenek has set a new cycling land speed record of more than 180 miles an hour, smashing the previous record that had stood for almost a quarter of a century.
The former holder of US national titles on the road, track and in mountain biking made her successful record attempt yesterday at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, the same location where Fred Rompleberg of the Netherlands had set the existing record in 1995.
She rode a custom-built KHS land speed record bike with a carbon frame and drafting behind a fairing attached to very dragster that Rompleberg used, which towed her up to a speed of 50 miles per hour (80 kilometres per hour) before releasing her.
Her average speed, measured over a distance of one mile, was 183.932 miles per hour (296.009 kilometres an hour), a little over 10 per cent faster than the 167 miles per hour (268.76 kilometres per hour) established by Rompelberg.
Mueller Korenek was already the holder of the women’s record, which she set in 2016 with a speed of 147.7 miles per hour (237.7 kilometres per hour).
> American becomes fastest ever female cyclist after hitting 147mph
-1024x680.jpg "“Clear anti-cyclist bias”: Lawsuit filed against Toronto police after cop doored cyclist… before ticketing rider over incident")
10 thoughts on “American woman smashes cycling land speed record, hitting nearly 184 miles per hour”
Sweet ride, there’s a video
Sweet ride, there’s a video on FB of the radio transmission and the direct aftermath. https://www.facebook.com/FireCycle/videos/262786141039440/?type=3
Apparently they were not supposed to let the drag car go over 175mph … oopsy
It must be shit scary riding
It must be shit scary riding ar those speeds. Its more of a drafting event, just need a faster vehicle for 200mph record
CXR94Di2 wrote:
Not sure it’s quite that simple 😉
There seem to be lots of
There seem to be lots of bicycle speed records:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cycling_records#Speed_record_on_a_bicycle
– but I couldn’t see one that’s one on the flat, on a normal bicycle-shaped bicycle without motor-pacing. 138mph “downhill on snow” sounds good though!
henryb wrote:
I like this one “Pedaling on a bicycle treadmill (rollers) after being “towed” to 100 mph, on a custom made £1,000,000 bicycle”.
Barriers to entry look quite high…
I too would be interested to know if there are actually ‘proper’ records, such as fastest unassisted speed on flat ground, indoor/outdoor over various shorter distances?
Jeez, now that’s impressive.
Jeez, now that’s impressive. I mean it’s really, really impressive. I really like her choice of pace vehicle. You’ve got to be a bt of a nutcase to try something as utterly bonkers as riding a bicycle that fast. She’s a star.
I’ve always meant to go to Bonneville but had to turn down the offer of a trip there to see JCB win the record for a diesel powered vehicle some years back alas. I had a prior engagement.
What sort of power do you
What sort of power do you need to be holding to do this. Once you have a vehicle punching a massive hole in the air, what are we talking about?
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
I hope they will make the power profile available from the Infocrank.cc that she used for training and the record. I guess the Infocrank is the fastest power meter in the world now.
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
Interesting question.
There’s a graph on this page at Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_performance
showing the power needed to overcome various forces at various speeds. If you disregard gravity (this was done on the flat) and accceleration (you’re asking about the power needed to hold that speed) and air resistance (that’s what the lead car is for) then you only have rolling resistance to worry about. The graph has this scaling linearly up to 50W at 10m/s. If we assume it continues to scale linearly up to 83m/s (184mph) then you’d need to be putting out 415W, which is not that astronomical. Probably less for her, actually, as that graph appears to refer to a 95kg rider or possibly rider plus bike. Either way.
I was lucky enough to be in
I was lucky enough to be in Copenhagen when Larry Vs Harry (makers of the Bullitt) had organised a cargo bike speed record attempt at a airstrip outside the city. Rather than pay for someone to come and officiate so it was a ratified record, they spent the money on beer instead; transported by Bullitt, of course. http://www.larryvsharry.com/world-record/