The morning sun cuts through the Sonoran Desert as Lael Wilcox hammers up Mount Lemmon for the third time this week. After 500 miles already logged, she’s chasing the Saturday Shootout group ride back in Tucson. This is the same rider who one year ago, on September 11, 2024, completed an 18,125-mile circumnavigation of the globe faster than any woman in history.
But this isn’t about maintaining fitness. This is about evolution.
Coming off her 2024 world record (18,125 miles in 108 days, 12 hours and 12 minutes), the 39-year-old ultra-cycling legend has spent 2025 systematically attacking bikepacking’s most coveted records. With her debut at the Transcontinental Race complete and another Tour Divide attempt behind her, she’s proven that her return to racing against others has unleashed a new level of performance.
“To be honest, it’ll be nice to be racing other people this year,” Wilcox explained from her Tucson home earlier this year, where she spent an unprecedented five straight months training through the winter. “It’s dynamic and different and I love competition. Hopefully, I can ride a bit faster too.”
A Year of Racing Returns
Wilcox’s 2025 campaign has been nothing short of remarkable. After hosting a screening of her around-the-world film in Emporia, she lined up for UNBOUND XL in late May, the grueling 350-mile gravel epic through the Flint Hills of Kansas. In a field deeper than ever, Wilcox battled through to finish fourth among the women in just over 24 hours, while in the shorter 200-mile race, Heather Jackson set a new women’s course record.
“I haven’t raced it since 2021 and I can’t imagine how fast the field will be 4 years later,” she had predicted. She was right: the pace was blistering.
Just two weeks later, on June 13, Wilcox rolled out from Banff for her fifth Tour Divide attempt, chasing the women’s record she held for nine years until it was broken in 2024. The 2,700-mile mountain bike race through the Rockies from Canada to Mexico remains one of her white whales. After battling through seven days of challenging conditions, including severe air quality issues from wildfires, she made the strategic decision to withdraw, demonstrating the wisdom that comes from years of ultra-endurance racing: knowing when to fight another day.
But the highlight of her racing year came in July with her debut at the Transcontinental Race. The road race across Europe, stretching from Santiago de Compostela in Spain to Constanța in Romania, represented entirely new territory. Covering approximately 4,800 kilometers in 13 days, 2 hours and 33 minutes, Wilcox finished as one of the top women in a field that included 92 female starters, a record for the event.
“I’ve never raced it,” she had said earlier in the year. “I loved riding across Europe so much during my around-the-world ride. I’m really looking forward to it.”
The Winter That Changed Everything
Wilcox’s 2025 success was built on a foundation laid during an unusual winter of stability and discovery. From October 2024 to February 2025, she stayed home in Tucson with her wife Rue, the longest she’d been in one place since the pandemic.
“Through the winter, I got to ride as much as I wanted, often hitting about 500 miles a week with several climbs up Mount Lemmon at home in Tucson. I tried to ride the Shootout every Saturday, a fast group ride that helps with speed.”
The winter wasn’t all smooth sailing. In February 2024, Wilcox had ventured to Alaska for the Iditarod Trail Invitational, following the historic dog-mushing route on a fat bike through some of the planet’s most inhospitable terrain. She won the women’s 350-mile category, completing it in 4 days and 27 minutes.
“So wild!” she exclaimed about the ITI experience.
But the real breakthrough came off the bike. After years of dealing with mysterious performance limitations, Wilcox finally received a diagnosis earlier this year: aspergillus, a fungus in her lungs.
“I found out that I have aspergillus, a fungus in my lungs that has caused my breathing problems for the past 10 years,” she revealed. “I might actually be able to treat it and be able to breathe on longer efforts. I’m going to Denver for a full week of testing.”
The Tech Revolution: ELEMNT ROAM and ACE Transform Navigation
Central to Wilcox’s 2025 campaign has been a complete overhaul of her navigation setup. After years of juggling multiple devices across different bikes and disciplines, she found her solution in Wahoo’s ecosystem.
“I’m really looking forward to the new [ELEMNT] ROAM,” Wilcox shared before the season. “I’ve been training with the ACE and I love how easy it is to see the map and my effort, so intuitive.”
The seamless integration across her entire fleet (from the fat bike she raced through Alaska’s Iditarod Trail to the mountain bike she pilots down the Continental Divide to the gravel bike at UNBOUND) has eliminated the technical friction that often plagues multi-discipline athletes.
“I use [ELEMNT ACE] for all of my bikes and it has worked seamlessly.”
This technological consistency proved crucial during her Transcontinental Race debut, where navigation decisions can make or break a race across multiple countries.
Safety First: The Pan-American Decision
Not every 2025 plan came to fruition. Wilcox had been considering the 14,000-mile Pan-American Highway from Alaska to Argentina, but recent tragedies forced a reconsideration.
“A cyclist named Mohit Kohli was recently killed by a collision with a mini bus while he was trying to set the FKT for the South America portion. It’s incredibly sad,” she explained. “Bond Almand, the guy that set a new Pan Am record last summer, was hit by multiple vehicles on the way.”
Her decision to postpone reflects a maturity earned through thousands of miles of experience: “I don’t think it’s worth sacrificing safety for a record. I want to live to be 100 and my biggest goal is that I can still ride when I’m that old.”
This philosophy was evident in her around-the-world route choice: “A part of what made my around-the-world ride so special is that I chose a very mountainous route that often took quiet roads with little traffic. It made for a physically harder ride, but a lot more peaceful and beautiful. I was pretty lucky that I could do this and still beat the previous women’s record by 16 days.”
Building Community: The Women’s Rally Legacy
Beyond personal achievements, Wilcox continues to champion women’s participation in adventure cycling. Since 2021, she’s co-hosted eight women’s rallies, initially partnering with Komoot. When Komoot’s acquisition by AllTrails earlier this year and subsequent significant layoffs threatened the future of their partnership, she successfully held the Montenegro rally from April 26-May 3 and secured new support for the program.
“I just found out this week that Komoot got sold and will probably lay off all of their employees. Super sad. We have a rally all ready to go in Montenegro from April 26-May 3. I think we’re going to try to find a different sponsor, so we can still do it.”
Not only did the Montenegro rally proceed as planned, but Wilcox secured Wahoo as the presenting partner for Lael’s Rallies through the remainder of 2025 and for the entirety of 2026. This partnership ensures the continuation of Wilcox’s mission to create supportive spaces for women in ultra-endurance cycling, building on successful events from the Alps to southern Spain that have introduced hundreds of women to bikepacking.
Coming Full Circle: From Solo Records to Racing
Wilcox’s 2025 season marks a significant shift from her recent focus on solo records. Her September 11, 2024 around-the-world achievement (starting and finishing at Chicago’s Buckingham Fountain while averaging 167 miles per day and climbing 630,000 feet) proved definitively that she could go the distance.
Now, with a year of racing against others under her belt, she’s shown that competition brings out another gear. The Transcontinental Race, in particular, demonstrated her ability to adapt to new challenges, navigating across an entire continent while racing against a field that included some of Europe’s strongest ultra-endurance riders.
The Wahooligan Way Forward
As Wilcox looks toward the remainder of 2025 and beyond, she embodies the Wahooligan spirit: using technology not as a crutch but as a tool to unlock human potential, choosing adventures that inspire rather than just impress, and building community while pushing personal boundaries.
Her around-the-world record proved she could go the distance. Her return to competitive racing has opened a new chapter in an already legendary career.
The Tour Divide record she held for nine years remains a target. The Transcontinental Race showed she can compete with Europe’s best. UNBOUND XL proved the gravel fields continue to push her to new levels.
For Lael Wilcox, 2025 has been about evolution, exploration, and the eternal pursuit of riding faster, farther, and freer than ever before.
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