Jenny Graham (born ) is a Scottish endurance cyclist. In 2018 she became the fastest woman to cycle around the world unsupported. In 2024 Lael Wilcox who was supported in her ride, superseded the time taken by Graham by 16 days.

Biography

Graham is part of the Adventure Syndicate (a collective of female endurance cyclists) and a member of

Cycling UK Cycling UK is a trading name of the Cyclists' Touring Club (CTC), which is a charitable membership organisation supporting cyclists and promoting bicycle use. Cycling UK is registered at Companies House as "Cyclists’ Touring Club", and is ...

. She started cycling in 2004, and was introduced to ultra-distance racing when planning a bike trip to Romania, after coming across the Highland Trail 550. Graham is from

Inverness Inverness (; ; from the , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness") is a city in the Scottish Highlands, having been granted city status in 2000. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highland ...

in Scotland and lives with her son in the

Bught The Bught ( ; ) is an area of the Scottish city of Inverness. A "bught" is defined in the Dictionary of the Scots Language as follows "Bowcht, Bucht, n. Also: boucht; bowght, bought. lem. bocht, bucht, inclosure for swine, sheep, etc.A sheep-fo ...

area of the city. In 2017, she was awarded an Adventure Syndicate training bursary place where she met cycling coach John Hampshire. He trained her for a year for free after seeing her potential. After this, she cycled the 750 mile Arizona Trail Race, finishing sixth. With the Adventure Syndicate, she cycled Land’s End to John o'Groats in four days over New Year, spending about 20 hours on the bike each day and mostly riding in the dark. She described the attempt as "brutal" and "absolutely disgusting".

Record for cycling around the world

In June 2018 Graham began an attempt to break the record for a female cycling around the world, only the third woman to take on this challenge. She rode unsupported and carrying all her kit, attempting to break the previous record of 144 days, held by Italian cyclist Paola Gianotti, by completing the 18,000 mile journey across four continents in 110 days. Her route was through 15 countries – Germany, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Mongolia, China, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, US, Portugal, Spain, France and Holland, and includes four flights and a boat. Graham's record attempt was covered by Dotwatcher.cc. After 23 days, Graham crossed into Russia, and had covered 5,126 miles when crossing into Khongor in Mongolia. At the halfway stage, Graham was in Australia. In late August or early September 2018, Graham reached the

Yukon Territory Yukon () is a territory of Canada, bordering British Columbia to the south, the Northwest Territories to the east, the Beaufort Sea to the north, and the U.S. state of Alaska to the west. It is Canada’s westernmost territory and the smallest ...

from Alaska, having cycled 12,000 miles of the total journey. A local shopkeeper advised Graham to acquire a firearm to protect herself from hungry bears who were down from the hills for the salmon in the river. Graham's custom-built bike was donated by the manufacturer Shand Cycles in

Livingston, West Lothian Livingston (, ) is the largest town in West Lothian, Scotland. Designated in 1962, it is the fourth post-war New towns in the United Kingdom, new town to be built in Scotland. Taking its name from Livingston Village, a village of the same name ...

. It has a steel frame to absorb shock on the variety of road surfaces along the route. Steven Shand has previously worked with Olympic medalist

Sir Chris Hoy Sir Christopher Andrew Hoy (born 23 March 1976) is a former Track cycling, track cyclist and racing driver from Scotland who represented Great Britain at the Olympics, Great Britain at the Olympic Games, Olympic and World Championships and Scot ...

to design a

keirin – "racing track" – is a form of Motor-paced racing, motor-paced cycle racing in which track cycling, track cyclists sprint for victory following a speed-controlled start behind a motorized or non-motorized pacer. It was developed in Japan ...

bike. Graham's record attempt was also supported by London-based bikepacking bag manufacturer, Apidura, many local people and businesses in the Inverness community, and by the leading US cloud solutions company, Unitas Global Inc. Jenny arrived back in Berlin on Thursday 18 October 2018 having completed an unsupported circumnavigation of the globe by bicycle in 124 Days, 10 hours and 50 minutes; Guinness World Records confirmed the attempt as recordbreaking in June 2019.Inverness cyclist Jenny Graham a new world record holder
BBC News Scotland, Accessed 10 June 2019

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Graham, Jenny Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Ultra-distance cyclists Scottish female cyclists British female cyclists Sportspeople from Inverness Solo female touring cyclists

Biography

Record for cycling around the world

See also

References