Creating a continent-sized GPS ride map: Two women, 24 days, and 13,581 miles

With WRWR members passing a baton between each leg of the journey, the relay connected more than 20,000 women from over 102 countries. In the words of WRWR CEO and Re-Cycle Garage founder Liza Miller, “We wanted to change the world's perception of what a woman rider is and can do, and show other women riders what's possible for them to do.” 

WRWR made that point abundantly clear in 2019, but when the message is that important, it’s worth reiterating. That’s why, seven years removed from the original World Relay, Liza set her sights on another big trip. When she did, she knew just the person for the job.

Wendy Crockett wears many hats. She’s a factory-certified technician, a tour guide, and a first-aid instructor. But above all, Wendy is a competitive endurance rider. She was the first woman to win the 11-day, 11,000-mile Iron Butt Rally in 2019. She and her riding partner, Ian McPhee, set a Guinness World Record for the Longest Continuous Journey in a Single Country by a Team in 2022. 

Wendy knows what it takes to complete a big-mile adventure, and that’s exactly what she had in mind. With the goal of completing the World’s Largest GPS Drawing by a Motorcycling Pair, Wendy and Liza embarked on a 13,500-mile trip that spanned, by Wendy’s account, “the width and depth of the country.” Thus, the Women Riders World Relay World Record (WR3) Ride was born.  

Following their 24-day journey, I sat down with Liza and Wendy to learn exactly what it takes to complete a record-setting ride. 

Common Tread: How did the WR3 Ride evolve WRWR’s message of connecting and challenging women riders?

Wendy: I do a lot of long-distance riding all around the world, so when we started talking about Women Riders World Relay, we said, "What if we take one of my ideas I have in the wings for the largest GPS drawing?" So we created this GPS drawing that says "WRWR 2026" across the country, and invited riders to come out and join us. Part of the challenge in this is that our days averaged about 600 miles. So it was a lot more than most of our riders had ever attempted before. 

We brought women together — we had one guy who showed up as well — on the road and challenged them to do something greater than they had ever thought possible. In that regard, it was a tremendous success. Each and every person that signed up to ride with us accomplished exactly what they set out to do.

CT: How did you come up with the idea for the WRWR 2026 G.P.S. drawing? Was that something that occurred to you over time, or was that an epiphany moment?

Wendy: I did a world record ride in 2022 that was a really big mile ride, and my takeaway from that was you can't just keep stacking miles. You can be big in different ways. So, in the last few years [I was] brainstorming other ways that you can do big, impressive things that's not necessarily just more thousand-mile days. And genuinely, what is bigger than using the entire United States as your canvas, right? 

Part of the original relay, if you happen to be working the day that the physical baton came through, or any number of reasons that women weren't able to take part in the original relay, we wanted to give every opportunity for people to come out. And certainly some of those same limitations applied to this ride, but we hit 38 states. Chances are pretty good we came close to where everybody was. So it did provide a great opportunity for people to come out and join us.

CT: How did you design the route? Had either of you ridden these roads before? Were there sections of the trip that were unknown to both of you? 

Wendy: Yeah, so there's no app to make GPS drawings on this scale (laughter). 

I've ridden well over a million miles, so a lot of these roads I have ridden before, especially out West. Half of our ride was the first “WR” in the West, and that was pretty easy to do. But as we moved east, the parts of our drawing became a bit more complex, a bit more nuanced, and the roads became a little bit messier. 

That was just a lot of trial and error, because it's not just a matter now of making the drawing look good; it's a matter of each day having to begin and end approximately at a town where we can put up an unknown number of people in a hotel. That caused us to have to reevaluate our routes a bit, when it's like, "There! That looks perfect. Oh, there's no hotel for 300 miles in either direction of that spot, so we've got to try again." 

Liza: It kind of parallels the first relay, because I had to come up with a route around the world in countries and places I've never been, and also check the weather. Like is this monsoon season? Is that a dirt road? It's amazing what technology can do today.

CT: Did you hit any snags along the way? Were there any mishaps, mechanical issues, or detours encountered?

Liza: Wendy has what I call her "magical bag of fixey things.” When I had a sudden loss of air in my rear tire on the freeway, we pulled over, and the valve stem had snapped. I'm like, "We're done." And then here comes Wendy, like, "I got this thing. Hold on." And it's a repair valve. Who has a repair valve? I didn't know it existed! It’s stuff like that where you're not accounting for it. Well, I guess you're not, but she is. 

CT: Dozens of women riders joined you on single days and full legs of the road trip. How rewarding is it when participants join the ride, and what new challenges arise?

Wendy: Our biggest group was about 10 riders, but we had one rider who joined us for nearly the entire [trip]. Her name was Rose. So Liza, Rose, and I all shared comms, and that made it so much easier. We had a fairly good rhythm together by the time we had a group that big. So we'd have me in the front and Liza in the back and Rose in the middle, and it made the logistics of moving a group a whole lot easier. But also, every single person that came out to ride with us contributed something valuable to the group. 

The day that Liza ended up in the hospital, she was suffering from severe dehydration. The rider who had joined us just the evening before was a [registered nurse], so she was exactly the right person to have with the group during that time to help figure out what was going on, get Liza to the hospital, and get her the care she needed. She canceled all of her subsequent plans so she could continue riding with us to make sure that Liza didn't die, which was very helpful for achieving our ultimate goal. (laughter) 

It was such an immediate sense of community because everybody wanted to see everybody else succeed and be safe and be as comfortable as possible. We took a lot of people who didn't know each other before that who were immediately making plans to get together for their next ride. 

Liza: Yeah, and there were other people, too, who when they signed up, they're like, "Well, I've never ridden this far, I don't know if I can, but I'll give it a try." When you see people see that their limits are further than they thought, that's such a kind of a proud thing to be a part of that. Then [you] see them go, "What else could I do?"

CT: You covered over uh 13,500 miles in just 24 days. That's nearly 600 miles per day — day after day. Were there points during the trip when you didn't feel like riding anymore? How did you find the motivation to get back in the saddle?

Wendy: WOOPISHHH!!! (makes whipping gesture)

(Laughter all around)

Liza: I was checking in with people, and they're like, "Are you having fun?" I was like, "No! This isn’t fun! If it was fun, everyone would do it.” That's not what I signed up for. I knew it would be hard. I knew it would be grueling.

But the thing that was amazing for me is the last hour was always easier than the first hour, because when you're getting to the end of the day, and you're seeing that clock ticking down, and you're seeing the miles coming down, you get that feeling of like, "I did it! Like, I made it!" And you get more and more elated. I felt like I accomplished something each day, and it was one day at a time. 

Wendy: It genuinely was. I came in as somebody with the experience, with my long-distance riding background, to say, "Hey, I know you guys are uncomfortable.” I know somebody always needs to stop for something. It's not that you want to stop for five minutes; it's that that five minutes, when you have 10 people, easily turns into a 30-minute stop. And it's not one 30-minute stop, it's the eight 30-minute stops. 

That means that we're getting in after the restaurants are closed, so we're not going to have dinner. That's not even that big of a problem if it happens once or twice, but it's the compounding issues. It begins to eat into your sleep. It's trying not to be a complete monster while trying to impart this marathon mindset that every one of these decisions that we make over the course of the day has an effect on us two weeks down the road. So we can have a day where we're a little bit short on sleep, we can have a couple of days where we end up skipping meals, but we can't do that for 24 days straight.

Liza: Yeah — our biggest challenge — my biggest challenge was getting through each day. [Wendy’s] biggest challenge was getting us through each day! (laughter)

Wendy: I think that's fair. (laughter)

Just because Liza and Wendy completed their cross-country expedition doesn’t mean that they’re inactive. The pair recently completed a Sturgis road trip to attend the Pearl’s Jam celebration. After all, changing the world's perception of what a woman rider is and showing women riders what's possible is the goal. That's best done out on the road.