If you think you’re a serious cyclist, you’ve got nothing on Denise Mueller-Korenek.

The US speed demon recently broke the world land speed cycling record, reaching speeds equivalent to those of a jet at take-off.

BBC reports that she reached the incredible speed of 296,010 km/h, which means that she not only smashed her own world record, but the long-standing men’s record as well.

Fred Rompelberg from Maastricht, Netherlands, was the holder of the motor-paced speed world record for cycling with 268,831 km/h, which he had held since 1995.

Yeah, she really smashed it:

Her reaction? Somewhat understated.

“It was a crazy wild ride to 183.9 mph, but so worth the sacrifice and years of focus on becoming the fastest human on a bicycle in the world,” Mueller-Korenek said.

“We weren’t supposed to go more than 175.”

Mueller-Korenek’s record-breaking feat saw her ride her custom-made bike across the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah on 16 September.

To reach these eye-watering speeds, Mueller-Korenek was pulled along by tow rope at 100 mph (around 160 km/h), before being released to pedal herself.

From that point she was riding in the slipstream of the dragster for 3.5 miles, achieving the record average of 183.9 mph over the last mile.

To put that in context, that’s about the same speed a Boeing 747 is travelling just before it leaves the runway during take-off.

As a result of her feat, there are calls for Guinness World Records to stop listing separate men’s and women’s records for the event.

You can watch history in the making here:

[source:bbc]