On July 23 2012, Juliana Buhring set out from Naples, Italy on a quest to set the first women’s world record for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe by bicycle.

The majority of her journey was unsupported.  Without sponsorship or financial backing, she completed her attempt thanks to the online donations from more than 100 friends and supporters.

On December 22 the same year, the 32-year-old English teacher completed the total distance of 29,060 km having taken 152 days, including flight transfers. She crossed 19 countries and four continents and spent 144 days in the saddle, covering an average of 200km a day.   

Juliana had only been riding a bike seriously for eight months before her trip.  She undertook the journey in part to raise awareness of the Safe Passage Foundation charity that she and her two sisters worked for that helps children brought up within a cult.  Their own remarkable story is recounted in their book “Not Without My Sister,” published in 2007.

And in August this year, Juliana set herself another epic cycling challenge. She finished ninth out of the 31 riders in the 3000km Quick Energy Transcontinental Race from London to Istanbul. This is claimed as the toughest unsupported race across Europe and the first of its kind.  Read her account of cycling 16-18 hours a day on her blog.

Q&A with Juliana Buhring

How do you keep going when it's getting really tough?

I can't live with myself if I quit.  I just think what will happen if I do quit and that usually helps.  It’s just about putting one foot in front of the other and pushing on one minute to the next.  I'll listen to audio-books to take my mind off the usual discomfort.  Once you get past that point, you can carry on. 

Experience helps.  If it has happened before you know that low is inevitably going to come your way at some point.

What motivates you to take on these huge cycling challenges?

I need to give myself a purpose.  For example, before the round the world cycle I was in a pretty deep low.  I believe that humans thrive on having a purpose to their existence.  For some people that's family or work.  I was in a slump so a friend suggested: “We're getting older.  Why don’t we try something interesting like cycling across Canada?” 

I thought about it but that seemed kind of boring.  I started reading about guys who had cycled round the world.  If you're going to cycle, you might as well cycle round the whole world.  I realised there had never been a women's record set and wondered why no woman had ever gone for that record.  So I said to myself:  “I'm going to go round the world - if I do it, awesome, and if not it'll be an adventure and I'll find out why no woman's done it.” 

You’ve just got back from the Trans Continental.  How did it go?

It was a crazy race.  I hadn't been training for a long time because I couldn't get on a bike after the world cycle.  So I’d only trained for two months. It was a lot tougher than I had imagined and mentally I was not in a good place.  I hit a wall at one point and thought: “What am I doing out here?” 

What is your sporting background?

I actually just started riding an ordinary bike eight months before I set off when I started training and I only got on a road bike for the first time a week before I set off.

I started off pedalling with gym shoes and gradually built up to doing 120km a day.  Four months before I wanted to leave I was introduced to a professional cycling trainer who wrote me a programme.  

The first thing he said was that I had got to change to clip-in pedals.  He wrote a training regimen to build up more muscle because I had no athletic form at all.  I started building up resistance to 200km a day.  At that point I had still been cycling on a hybrid.  Two weeks before leaving I thought: “I'm going to go for this and go light - I'll go on a road bike.” 

But I’d never ridden a road bike – it’s entirely different positioning, control, brakes and everything.  I had no idea what I was doing.  I fell off quite a few times. 

When I set off, because I wasn’t a cyclist friends said they’d follow me along the way, cycling parts of the route with me – but after the first few thousand kilometres I didn’t have enough money left and I wanted to be fully immersed in the experience so I went it alone.  I just kept going from middle America round the rest of the world alone. 

So why had no other woman done it before?

I can't tell you now why no woman had done it.  By and large world is a much safer place than we imagine, apart from perhaps India where I did not have a great experience.  You can't be stupid but people were generally so friendly to me.  The entire trip was sponsored by people following me online sending little donations to keep me going.  By the time I reached Australia I was already half way round the world and that was a real incentive to push on. 

We never actually push ourselves to our full limits.  Most of us think:  “How cool would that be to do that?”  But until you try, you don't know what you're capable of.  Once you do, it becomes addictive to find out if you even have limits.  I'm continuing to push my limits and I still haven't found out how far I can go.

What’s next for you?

Next year I'm targeting the Tour Divide [a 2,745 mile self-supporting along the mountain passes and valleys from the Canadian Rockies to the US Mexican Border] http://tourdivide.org/].  I'm not a mountain biker but I'll start training on a bike.

Is it definitely all about the bike for you? 

No, I'm looking at new stuff.  I’m not going to say what as I hate jinxing things.  I have a massive thing in mind, but it's not on a bike. 

Tell us about the Safe Passage Foundation?

Me and my two sisters worked for the Safe Passage Foundation so I always support them with any of my endeavours.  The Safe Passage Foundation was set up by children brought up in extremist groups and cults to help other kids who leave these environments to adapt to life on the outside. 

We don't belong anywhere.  When you leave a cult you are usually cut off from your family and your former life.  For example, you don't know even how to set up a bank account.  The Foundation can help with a scholarship to fund a university education or with emergency funding to help people with advice and resources like writing a CV. 

And finally, what is it about cycling that you’ve found so appealing?

You reassess the important things in life. Everything's boiled down to the simplest functions - pedalling, sleeping and eating.  Nothing else exists.  It's therapeutic.  The simpler life is, the happier you are.

See Buxton Adventure Festival for details of times and tickets

Note: This article was restored from the archives. It's published creation date is inaccurate.