From TFA: "Mueller-Korenek sat on a bike with gearing so steep that she needed to be towed to around 100 mph before taking over under her own power." So no, she didn't just maintain 184 MPH.
The semantics of it are silly and pointless to discuss, since she's not accelerating those extra 84MPH using only her own power. There's a lot of aerodynamic influences happening here and this is more of an engineering feat than an athletic one.
The GP is factually wrong, this isn't "semantics". Your comment moves the goalpost to "well the aerodynamics help". This is true: The slipstream moves at the speed of the car ahead, so it's like she has no headwind slowing her down. She still needs to accelerate 84 MPH (on top of maintaining 100 MPH). Think of doing this on a gym bike where you don't have headwind either. This is very much an athletic feat.
It's also an engineering feat, but again TFA: "As they targeted the overall record, their team revamped the same dragster that was used to set the men's record" -- they're reusing last time's engineering.
whamlastxmas|7 years ago
bla2|7 years ago
It's also an engineering feat, but again TFA: "As they targeted the overall record, their team revamped the same dragster that was used to set the men's record" -- they're reusing last time's engineering.