U.S. woman shatters cycling speed record

A 45-year-old American woman shattered a two-decade-old cycling speed record Sunday, pedalling 295.5 km/h across Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats in the slipstream of a specially designed race car. The record for paced cycling speed was previously held by Dutch rider Fred Rompelberg, who hit a top speed of 267.2 km/h in 1995. Denise Mueller-Korenek rode a custom-designed machine featuring a unique double drivetrain capable of propelling the bike 39 metres with each revolution of the pedals, a necessity for hitting speeds surpassing the takeoff velocity of a typical commercial jetliner. By contrast, a typical geared bike might travel about five metres with each pedal revolution and racing bikes used in competitions like the Tour de France hit about nine metres per revolution.