Coffee first, then the world One woman's record -breaking pedal around the planet

In 2018, Scottish cyclist Jenny Graham set a new acknowledged Guinness world record for women by riding 18,000 miles in 124 days, 11 hours. Starting and ending in Berlin, Graham rode east across Eastern Europe, Asia, Australia/New Zealand, North America, and Western Europe. To achieve her goal, Graham aimed to ride for 15 hours and sleep for five hours per day with minimum assistance from others. This resulted in riding into the middle of the night and often sleeping outdoors. Written in diary style, she noted her travel locations, time riding, kilometers covered each day, and adventure highlights for many of the days. What this book lacks in scholarly apparatus (it has none), it makes up with excellent prose. Graham is a compelling writer, and readers feel her loneliness, exhaustion, mosquito bites, wet clothes, saddle sores, foot problems, and concern for her safety because of daunting weather, dangerous roads, animals (bears, kangaroos), bicycle breakdowns, language barriers, and the occasional shady character. Her stories of the kindness shown by strangers and friends while on her solo endeavor are poignant. Her perseverance should be inspirational for younger athletes. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers only. --Joe Arky Badics, Eastern Michigan University

Graham--director of the Adventure Syndicate, a collective of women cyclists--debuts with a stirring account of how she became "the fastest woman to circumnavigate the planet by bike." She was a dedicated cyclist looking for her next challenge when she heard about the Guinness World Record for circling the planet by bike and set about breaking it, embarking in 2018 on a grueling trek that took 125 days and spanned 18,000 miles through 16 countries (she was allowed to fly across oceans). Recounting her feat in novelistic detail, Graham describes sleeping in drainage pipes under the road when shelter was unavailable and narrowly avoiding calamity on several occasions (a close scrape with a truck in Russia was particularly harrowing). Graham keeps the tone light with humorous asides, as when she remembers fearing mosquito bites had swelled her forehead so much that Chinese border officials would not match her to her passport photo. The meticulous account of her ride--filled with details about her struggle to eat well, maintain her bike, and keep it together mentally--provides an intimate look into an impressive accomplishment. This tale of endurance and determination inspires. (June)