You'd think for the fastest female cyclist, nothing would make her nervous.
Not so, for Denise Mueller who was honored at this years El Tour De Tucson. The 34th El Tour honored Mueller Wednesday night at a dinner. "Besides the nerves of getting to get up there and having to talk in front of that many people, which was amazing, it was more or less me looking at what it is for me to be in that position and try and be an inspiration," says Mueller.
Mueller used her inspiration in a different way. She was a mom of 3, running a business and doing her every day life when she decided she'd get back into bike racing and eventually, the land speed record.
Mueller set the paced bicycle land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah back in September. Using a Range Rover to pace her to 90 mph, until eventually releasing her bike from the car and using the draft of a racecar in front of her to get up to 174 mph in the last mile of the track.
Mueller's coach, John Howard, once had the record at 152.2mph. His new challenge? Coaching Mueller to attempt to break the record of 167mph set in 1995 by Fred Rompelberg. Howard says Mueller is such an incredible athlete, he would not be surprised if she did it. "What woman do you know that can dead lift over 200 lbs?", says Howard. As if 167mph doesn't sound hard enough, Mueller will also be the only female to ever attempt the feat.
Mueller's message is simple. "Get out of the rut of life that they think they're in, get back in the game of life and do something."
