Amanda Coker is riding. A violent wind bends the 100-foot tall pines in Tampa, Florida’s Flatwoods Park—and Amanda’s riding. Hail pelts the black tarmac of the park’s circuitous seven-mile trail, Amanda’s riding. One hundred-degree heat radiates from the asphalt, Amanda’s riding. Smoke from a wildfire clouds the sky, Amanda’s riding.

Amanda Coker, 24, has ridden her bike, on average, more than 236.8 miles per day for an entire year, almost exclusively within the confines of Flatwoods Park; she rides from before the sun rises until after it sets. She has not taken a single day off. Her longest day is 302 miles. Her shortest, 55 miles, she completed during Hurricane Hermine.

She has polished off innumerable jars of Nutella, suffered road rash from run-ins with rogue riders on the trail, and dealt with saddle sores she’d prefer not to discuss in detail. She has been supported by her devoted parents, her mother Donna and her father Ricky, and she has exhibited steadfast determination, rising every morning at 4 a.m. to log another 13-or-so hours at a staggering 20-plus miles per hour.

And on Sunday, May 14, her lifestyle choices paid off. Coker completed her quest to set the record for the most miles ridden on a bicycle in a single year—more than 86,000 miles, besting the previous record by over 10,000 miles.

As she’s pedaled throughout this year, Amanda’s continued to recover from being struck by a distracted motorist in 2011, a crash that flung her 50-feet, knocked her unconscious, and left her with a traumatic brain injury. And through her mind-boggling mileage, she’s inspired thousands of other cyclists, online and in person, to ride longer and pedal a little harder. “I definitely feed off of all the positive support online, and the community here at Flatwoods,” Amanda says. “That’s part of what helps keeps me going.”

But her accomplishments—which elicit responses such as, “crazy” and “unbelievable”—have also attracted doubters. The sheer scope of Amanda’s mileage—plus the speed at which she’s managed it, and the seeming monotony of the 7-mile loop Amanda rides over and over to clock the majority of that mileage—does not fit into our preconceived notions of human endurance.

Amanda logs as many miles in a day as many avid cyclists ride in a month—leading some in the latter group to believe it can’t be done.

“I’ve had to block people who leave negative comments on my Strava account,” Amanda says.

“We’ve had people say she takes breaks to recharge her bike’s batteries, that she’s drafting behind our car, or that she has an army of 15 people towing her all day,” says her mother Donna.

Ricky even had to attach a “no drafting” sign to the back of her saddle, in part due to harassment from men who seem bothered by the fact that a woman could accomplish such a feat.

Too busy pedaling to defend herself from those who question the miles she’s accumulated, Amanda can only say, come to Flatwoods. Come see for yourself.

Finding Purpose in Riding Circles

Ian Dille

In the 6 a.m. twilight of a misty early morning, a few days before the end of her record-setting year, I meet Amanda Coker and her parents in a well-manicured and gated neighborhood adjacent to Flatwoods Park. Because Flatwoods doesn’t open until 7 a.m., Amanda starts her day here, behind the beam of a bright bike light, dodging landscaping sprinklers and playing leapfrog with school buses.

Ricky rides with her, for company “and security,” he says. I ask Amanda if she wakes up excited, ready to ride, and she looks at me like, Um, no, I’m 24.

“Before this, I used to sleep in all the time,” she says.

As Amanda wakes and warms up, Ricky gives her a draft (legal according to the rules set out by the Ultra Marathon Cycling Association [UMCA], which validates the Highest Annual Mileage Record).

A high school track star in his home state of North Carolina, Ricky was an avid runner until Achilles problems turned him onto cycling. Amanda first began riding alongside her dad as a teenager, and found success as a racer, placing sixth in the time trial at the junior national championships in 2010, and later enrolling at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, one of the country’s top collegiate cycling programs.

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In 2011, she was riding with Ricky near their then hometown of Clayton, North Carolina, when a distracted driver struck them. Ricky’s back broke; he wasn’t able to reach Amanda, who lay motionless. “It was every parent’s nightmare,” he says.

The driver was ticketed for an illegal pass, but never faced charges.

Following the crash, Amanda suffered from a host of symptoms related to traumatic brain injury, including depression and anxiety; she had to leave school.

“Every brain injury symptom you read about, she had,” Ricky says. Donna adds, “You never really recover, from a brain injury. Your brain learns how to adapt.”

Amanda had once been outgoing, but she became wary of engaging with people. “People would ask her why she wasn’t in school, or why she wasn’t working, and after a while she felt like she was being interrogated,” says Donna. “It was hard for her to explain that she just needs time.”

Ricky’s own broken back required multiple surgeries. Medical bills piled up.

In the fall of 2014, the family decided to start fresh. They packed their belongings, left North Carolina, and set out on the road. They went to Disney World, one of Amanda’s favorite places; then spent about a year roaming around Florida, camping and staying in RV parks.

By 2015, Amanda began expressing an interest in riding again, and proposed doing a cross-country bike ride she’d often discussed with her dad. Amanda felt the journey would help her overcome her fear of riding on the road, and Ricky and Donna believed that planning and executing the trip would help Amanda continue to recover from her brain injury.

Amanda sold her car to fund the trip, and Ricky, unable to pedal because of his back, drove behind Amanda on a 50cc scooter for nearly 3,000 miles. He equipped the scooter with a mass of flashing LEDs to warn oncoming drivers.

Amanda logged multiple 500-mile weeks during the cross-country ride, and discovered a talent for long-distance cycling. Upon returning to Florida, the family parked its RV in Zephyrhills, a small town outside of Tampa, and not long after discovered Flatwoods, a 20-minute drive away.

At the end of 2015, Amanda began riding with the park’s various groups, and soon met a man named Kurt Searvogel.

Searvogel was finishing his own record year of riding. He would become the first person to truly attempt—and succeed in breaking—the Highest Annual Mileage Record, which had last been set in 1939 by a British man named Tommy Godwin.

Riding alongside Searvogel, Amanda’s mileage soared. She put in 170 miles one day, and recorded more miles on Strava than any other woman in the month of December. Seeing Amanda’s promise, Searvogel suggested she go for the women’s record, saying Flatwoods was “the perfect place to rack up miles.”

Searvogel never imagined Amanda would surpass his own record. (Train to reach your own wild cycling goal with the game-changing interval and weight-training plan in Maximum Overload for Cyclists, published by Rodale!)

Pulling for Amanda

Ian Dille

After getting 16 miles in the neighborhood, Amanda and Ricky ride a short distance to Flatwoods Park. Donna drives the family’s Honda Element—a rolling base station loaded full of coolers, towels, sunscreen, drink mix, bike tools, and more—to a parking lot at the park’s southern entrance.

When Amanda started this journey, Donna says, she truly aimed to only break the women’s annual mileage record of 29,603 miles by riding roughly 100 miles a day. “That’s how it was presented to me,” jokes Donna, whose quick wit and eagerness to banter belies the fact that she’s been up before 4 a.m. for an entire year.

But on the first day of the record attempt, Amanda logged 250 miles. The second day, she did 230; the day after that 232, and so on. Every day since, Donna and Ricky have been in this Flatwoods parking lot from the park’s opening to close, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

They know all the park rangers at Flatwoods and nearly everyone who regularly rides at the park. Donna and Ricky ask them how many miles they’ve logged, and how they did at recent events. They’ve learned the names of riders’ kids, and what the parents do for a living. Ricky, clad in a shop apron as he works on Amanda’s bikes, has become the park’s de facto mechanic—pumping up tires, or diagnosing a worn bike chain.

Rider after rider stops by their vehicle. How’s Amanda feeling? How many total miles did she reach today? When will she be done with the record? Months ago, Ricky started writing Amanda’s total mileage to date on a window of their car, because so many of the park’s cyclists wanted to keep track of her progress.

Amanda’s mileage, written on the window of her family’s car, five days before their record year concluded. Ian Dille

“Before the Cokers came here, everyone would just put their bike in their car and go home,” says Darell Dyal, 74. “Now, everyone stays and chats; there’s a real sense of community, of encouragement.” When he first started riding at Flatwoods, Darell says he and his wife would do one-lap on their hybrid bikes and go home. But he kept getting buzzed by Amanda, so eventually he upgraded to a Schlitter recumbent bike, the same brand Amanda sometimes uses. (Because each bike position uses slightly different muscles, Amanda alternates between riding a road bike, a time-trial bike, and a recumbent bike throughout each day—also legal by UMCA rules.)

Amanda—who calls out to many of the park’s cyclists, inline skaters, and runners by name as she rides—often cajoles Darell and the other older men she sees on the loop. “One day it was, ‘Oh hey Darell, how are your Depends holding up?’ the next it’s, ‘Why, hello there gentlemen, great pace today,’” he says. The more Amanda rode, the more Darell rode, too. He lost around 40 pounds, and is planning his first century attempt “while Amanda is still on the attack,” he says.

Amanda has touched other riders with her record attempt, too. “When she first started doing this, they called me ‘one-lap dad,’” Ricky says. But now he regularly logs 100 or more miles with Amanda. He rides with her in the morning, and delivers bottles to her out on the loop, then sits on her wheel for a while. He’s lost 20 pounds. Donna, once a competitive swimmer, logged a personal record of 115 miles; she’d wanted to ride half of what Amanda does everyday.

There’s Jorge Upegui, a Colombian man who picked up cycling a few years ago; where he once could barely cling to Amanda’s wheel at 18mph, he can now tow her for multiple laps at 21-plus-mph.

There’s Sarah Olsen, a lawyer who arrived at the park one Saturday morning without the battery for her bike’s electronic shifting. “Here, ride my spare bike,” Amanda offered. Sarah rode her first century that day.

The weight of what she’s doing—how she’s touched others and helped them to become better, healthier people—is something she’s just starting to grasp.

And then there’s George Gibbons, a former Category 1 racer who would mysteriously speed in and out of the park on his bike without talking to anyone. Eventually, he approached the Cokers and asked them about Amanda. Could he maybe ride with her? Sure, Donna and Ricky and Amanda said. The evening I’m there, George tows Amanda at 23mph for a few laps, as he does almost every day after work—and jokes and laughs with the various denizens of Flatwoods.

So many people have set their own records riding at Flatwoods with Amanda that one of her friends and regular riding partners, Allan Duhm, crafted a large celebratory poster to document the “100 and 200-mile club”: Cyclists decorate it with their names and records gained alongside Amanda. The front of the 100-mile club board filled up, so they wrote people’s names on the back. Then they had to add another 100-mile board, and then another.

Donna and Ricky joke about the Amanda Coker Training Program, all these people pushing past their personal limits. But it’s more than a joke. It’s true.

The Hardest Miles Are Alone

Ian Dille

It’s late in the afternoon, and Amanda is logging laps alone. The sun shines high over the tall pines, and the temperature reads 94 degrees. The trees do little to shield the breeze in Flatwoods Park, nicknamed the “windy woods,” and hot gusts of Florida air hit Amanda every time she turns to take on another lap.

“These are the moments people don’t see,” says Ricky. “People think she’s riding with people all day long. But most of her miles, the hardest miles, are alone.”

The consistency of Amanda’s mileage log has fueled much of the online skepticism around her record. The numbers on the screen don’t capture the difficulty of many of her miles—for example, the time she had to grip her handlebar so tightly during a windstorm, that she developed blisters on her fingers.

Ricky and Donna tell me a story about one man from the UK who came to watch Amanda ride at Flatwoods—to confirm for himself that this feat was possible—but never met Amanda or her parents. “We didn’t even know he was here until we saw him post on Facebook that Amanda was for real,” Donna says. “Someone commented, ‘Why didn’t you introduce yourself?’ and he replied, ‘That wasn’t my purpose for being there.’”

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This record attempt has depleted the Cokers’ savings. It has also cost them a year of their lives, devoted solely to riding as much as humanely possible. (“We bought a brand new TV before we started this,” says Ricky. “It’s still in the box.”) But these hard, lonely moments don’t seem to weaken Amanda or her parents’ resolve.

For other people though, this type of riding—riding that is not fun—inevitably leads them to wonder, why? What is the point of all this?

As she gets one day closer to the record, endorphins begin rushing through her body—she feels a sense of euphoria.

During my visit to Flatwoods, I pose this question to one of Amanda’s friends, Jared Barr, a marketing officer at Florida College. Jared had just gotten into cycling when he met Amanda and Kurt Searvogel, and he logged his own first-ever century ride with them at the park. He’s since become hooked on the sport, lost of a bunch of weight himself, and recently began mountain biking at Flatwoods with his 12-year-old son.

Before Jared answers, he takes a long breath and thinks for a moment. “On the surface, yes, it’s crazy. And I can see how people don’t get it,” he says. “But when you look at what she’s doing, in the context of her brain injury, and how therapeutic this has been or for her, it really makes sense.” Jared says he’s seen Amanda become more buoyant and personable, and others share his sentiment.

Darell says Amanda’s “come into her own this year” as a gracious and outgoing young lady. He calls her the Queen of Flatwoods. And Amanda’s parents say the weight of what she’s doing, how she’s touched others and helped them to become better, healthier people, is something “she’s just starting to grasp.”

When I ride beside Amanda and ask her whether she can sense the effect this record attempt has had on her, and whether it’s helped her recover from her brain injury. She says she remembers how at its worst, her brain just didn’t work right. “I would get night paralysis because my brain was overwhelmed,” she says. During this year she’s gotten physically stronger, riding faster and longer (270 miles at 21mph on the day I visited), and she’s gotten mentally stronger, too.

At the end of every day, when the sun begins to set and the moon rises over the pines, she says her friends would get off work and come ride with her. As she got one day closer to the record, endorphins would begin rushing through her body, and she'd feel a sense of euphoria.

To me, it sounds like the best medicine.

Seven things you shouldn't do before a ride:

That Flatwoods Magic

Ian Dille

Before I leave Flatwoods, I ride with Amanda one more time—a rare honor, since she’s had to close her circle of riding partners to only people she knows and trusts. At this point, she can’t afford a crash. And, though supporters have come from as far away as the UK and Brazil to meet her and take photos with her, she’s also had scary encounters with people to whom Donna refers as “Strava stalkers”—people who don’t bother to introduce themselves to her and her parents, and jump on her wheel.

Amanda is anxious about this record attempt ending, saying, “I’ve always thrived on routine.”

This long year has given her purpose and direction in her life—things she sought following her crash. Sure, she’s just riding her bike, but she says, “I treat it like a job.” And she’s found immense value in that job—and through it, value in the community her and her parents have fostered here at Flatwoods, and in all of the people she’s inspired.

Not entirely sure what she’ll do next, she says, “I’d like to start competing in time trials.” But she doesn’t have any specific events in mind yet.

She hopes to go back to school one day. She majored in statistics and exercise science in college, and she calculates her daily heart rate fluctuations in percentages. But she doesn’t know when, or if that will happen. She’s still paying off loans from classes she didn’t get to complete.

Most immediately, Amanda is committed to riding more at Flatwoods, with the goal of becoming the fastest person to reach 100,000-miles. “But I probably won’t be as dedicated to that mark,” she says. “If it’s raining, I might go home.”

I’d previously asked Amanda where the Strava segment starts for the Flatwoods one-lap challenge, and she’s repeatedly encouraged me to make an attempt. As the laps wind down to when I’ll have to leave, she tells me, “Last chance.” I give her an excuse—that I’m tired—and she asks me, how fast do I think I can go?

“I don’t know, 25 miles per hour?” I say, wondering if I can really do that.

“What if I go with you,” she offers. I can’t refuse.

She leads me up to speed at the start of the lap, then sits on my wheel as I take on the seven-mile time trial.

When my speed drops, she tells me to pick it up. She tells me I’m doing great, and points out trail hazards, like a bunny that bounds across my path. I hug the inside of the turns, and pedal harder where I would normally begin to fade.

As we reach the end of the lap, I empty my tank and meet my own goal, averaging 25mph. Amanda stops riding, a rare sight during her day, and gives me a fist bump. She’s as stoked as I’m exhausted. I tell her that was fun. Then she takes off again.

She'd go on to log more than 270-miles three days in a row, and then record her 302-mile ride just two days before finishing the attempt on Sunday, May 14. She's still piling up miles on top of her miles after putting the record further out of reach—more than 86,000 miles in a single year.

Right now, one thing is certain.

Amanda’s riding.

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