I think it has to have been a significant factor just in general. And now I checked the route the previous record-holder rode, and it's a very different story:

I think it has to have been a significant factor just in general. And now I checked the route the previous record-holder rode, and it's a very different story: https://jenny-graham.com/round-the-world/ https://jenny-graham.com/round-the-world/ tl;dr: rain, riding at night, sleeping out in the cold. And I just noticed that article has the average miles per day, which ranges from a high of 184 to a low of 117 -- so the route can obviously affect performance by a factor of 1.5 or more.