Jenny Graham is a Scottish endurance cyclist. In 2018 she became the fastest woman to
cycle around the world unsupported.
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 organization, charitable membership organisation supporting cyclists and promoting bicycle use. Cycling UK is registered at Companies House as "Cyclists’ ...
. 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 gd, Inbhir Nis , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness"; sco, Innerness) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Histori ...
in Scotland
and lives with her son in the
Bught 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 is 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 is being 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 (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...
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 ( sco, Leivinstoun, gd, Baile Dhunlèibhe) is the largest town in West Lothian, Scotland. Designated in 1962, it is the fourth post-war new town to be built in Scotland. Taking its name from a village of the same name incorporated ...
.
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 MBE (born 23 March 1976) is a former track cyclist and Racing driver from Scotland who represented Great Britain at the Olympic and World Championships and Scotland at the Commonwealth Games.
Hoy is eleven-times a w ...
to design a
keirin
– literally "racing cycle" – is a form of motor-paced cycle racing in which track cyclists sprint for victory following a speed-controlled start behind a motorized or non-motorized pacer. It was developed in Japan around 1948 for gamblin ...
bike. Graham's record attempt is 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
See also
* Solo female cyclists
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Graham, Jenny
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Ultra-distance cyclists
Scottish female cyclists
Sportspeople from Inverness
Solo female touring cyclists