Paris–Brest–Paris (PBP) is a long-distance cycling event. It was originally a 1,200 km (750 mi) bicycle race from Paris to Brest and back to Paris in 1891. The last time it was run as a race was 1951. The most recent edition of PBP was held on 18–22 August 2019.
Bicycle touring is the taking of self-contained cycling trips for pleasure, adventure or autonomy rather than sport, commuting or exercise. Touring can range from single-day trips, to multi-day trips, to years. Tours may be planned by the participant or organised by a holiday business, a club, or a charity as a fund-raising venture.
The Race Across America, or RAAM, is an ultra-distance road cycling race held across the United States that started in 1982 as the Great American Bike Race.
Road bicycle racing is the cycle sport discipline of road cycling, held on paved roads. Road racing is the most popular professional form of bicycle racing, in terms of numbers of competitors, events and spectators. The two most common competition formats are mass start events, where riders start simultaneously and race to a set finish point; and time trials, where individual riders or teams race a course alone against the clock. Stage races or "tours" take multiple days, and consist of several mass-start or time-trial stages ridden consecutively.
Beryl Burton, OBE was an English racing cyclist who dominated women’s cycle racing in the UK, winning more than 90 domestic championships and seven world titles, and setting numerous national records. She set a women's record for the 12-hour time-trial which exceeded the men's record for two years.
Land's End to John o' Groats is the traversal of the whole length of the island of Great Britain between two extremities, in the southwest and northeast. The traditional distance by road is 874 miles (1,407 km) and takes most cyclists 10 to 14 days; the record for running the route is nine days. Off-road walkers typically walk about 1,200 miles (1,900 km) and take two or three months for the expedition. Signposts indicate the traditional distance at each end.
David "Tinker" Juarez is an American former professional BMX and cross-country mountain bike racer. His prime competitive years in BMX were from 1978 to 1984 and in mountain bike racing 1986 to 2005. Since late 2005, he has competed as a Marathon mountain bike racer. In all three disciplines, he has won numerous national and international competitions. Most recently, Juarez finished third in the 2006 Race Across America Endurance bicycle race.
Eileen Sheridan, née Shaw is a retired English cyclist who specialised in time trialing and road record breaking. She broke all the records of the Women's Road Records Association during the late 1940s and 1950s. They included Land's End to John o' Groats, set by Lilian Dredge. Eileen has lived with her family in Isleworth, Middlesex since 1952.
Audrey McElmury was the first American cyclist to win the Road World Championship. She won in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1969, having fallen and remounted her bike. Hers was the United States' first world cycling championship since Frank Kramer won the professional sprint race in 1912 and the first ever in road cycling.
The Guinness World Record (GWR) for fastest circumnavigation of the globe by bicycle is awarded for completing a continuous journey around the globe by bicycle and other means, consisting of a minimum 29,000 km in total distance cycled.
Eleanor Patricia Hawkins, better known as Pat Hawkins, was an Australian endurance cyclist from Victoria Park, Perth. In 1940, aged 18 and only 12 months into her cycling career, she set world records for "1,000 miles" and "Seven days". She also set the Australian records for distance travelled in one, two, three, four, five, six and seven days, plus surpassing the Australian professional men's record.
Tillie Anderson was a road and track cyclist. Tillie, a Swedish immigrant and, from all accounts, an extremely strong-willed individual, outpaced the best of the best on the wheel, with times that are still impressive today. Born in Skåne, Sweden in 1875, Tillie emigrated to Chicago in 1891 at the age of 16. At 18, she had saved enough money working as a seamstress to buy her first bicycle. During the summer of 1895, she took part in the race over the Elgin-Aurora (Ill.) century course and broke the century record. She later traveled around the country taking part in six-day bicycle races for women, which involved racing at top speed two hours each evening for six consecutive days. Tillie was 20 years old when the League of American Wheelmen recognized her as the best woman cyclist in the world. In June 2000 – 105 years later - Tillie was posthumously inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame, an undisputed champion and a true pioneer in women's athletics.
Juliana Buhring is a British-German ultra-endurance cyclist and writer. In December 2012, she set the first Guinness World Record as the fastest woman to circumnavigate the globe by bike, riding over 29,000 kilometres (18,000 mi) in a total time of 152 days.
Lon Haldeman is an American ultramarathon cyclist. Nicknamed "Marathon Lon", He was the catalyst for ultra distance bicycle racing. His first achievement was in 1979 when he won the Wisconsin End to End Record covering 407 miles in 23 hours 7 minutes. In the 1982 Great American Bike Race, later renamed the Race Across America, he completely changed the parameters, cycling for 9 days and 20 hours with three other cycling pioneers John Howard, John Marino and Michael Shermer.
The Transcontinental Race (TCR) is an annual, self-supported, ultra-distance cycling race across Europe. It is one of the world's toughest ultra-endurance races. The route and distance varies for each edition between about 3,200 and 4,200 km, with the winners generally taking 7 to 10 days. Interest in the race grew rapidly from 30 people starting the first edition of the race in 2013 to over 1,000 people applying for a place in the fourth edition in 2016, 350 of whom were successful; since then, these numbers have been reasonably stable.
Michael Richard Hall was a British cyclist and race organiser who specialised in self-supported ultra-distance cycling races. In 2012, he won the inaugural World Cycle Race. In 2013 and 2016, he won the Tour Divide ultra-endurance mountain bike race across the Rocky Mountains in Canada and the United States. In 2014, he won the inaugural Trans Am Bike Race, a road-based event from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast in the United States. From 2013, he was the principal organiser of the Transcontinental Race, an event similar to the TransAm Bicycle Race, but that traverses Europe. Michael Hall was also featured in the cycling film Inspired to Ride a film directed by Mike Dion.
The definition of ultra-distance cycling is far more vague than in ultra running or in ultra-triathlon. Any bike race or ride longer than a century ride, which is 100 miles (160 km), is sometimes considered to be ultra-distance cycling. However, such events are relatively common, so using a longer distance to define the category is more useful, such as any race or ride that is longer than 200 kilometres (120 mi), 300 kilometres (190 mi) or even a double century, 200 miles (320 km).
Lael Wilcox is an ultra-endurance bicycle racer who won the Trans Am Bike Race in 2016, and set Tour Divide's women's course record on an individual time trial (ITT) in 2015. She was the first American to win the Trans Am. She also set the overall course record with her time on the Baja Divide route.
Jenny Graham is a Scottish endurance cyclist. In 2018 she became the fastest woman to cycle around the world unsupported.
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