It would be a heck of a lot dumber for the purposes of setting this particular record fitting the weight of the not insignificant number (and range!) of gears i

It would be a heck of a lot dumber for the purposes of setting this particular record fitting the weight of the not insignificant number (and range!) of gears it would take to let human legs accelerate the bike to that speed... Remember, she is doing over 180mph at probably somewhere in the region of 80-120RPM at the cranks, that’s an _enormous_ gear to push. It’s the same reason you don’t start your typical car in 6th gear from a standing start. For what it’s worth, people do try standing start records using a car for a slipstream and a very large fixed gear, it typically limits most riders to ~100MPH. Given the huge jumps in cog size needed it’s hard to do multiple gears on a push bike for something like this without building pretty complex (and likely heavy) transmissions. You’re certainly not going to manage it on Shimano derailleurs...